


In Extremis

by gaelicspirit



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Brotherhood, Drowning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hurt Angus Macgyver (Macgyver 2016), Hurt Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016), Hurt/Comfort, Mission Fic, Pirates, Team as Family, Temporary Character Death, pop culture mayhem, questionable science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:49:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 61,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27200081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaelicspirit/pseuds/gaelicspirit
Summary: Early Season 3, post Dalton’s Heroes. Mac and Jack join one of Zoe’s graduate students on a research ship in the North Atlantic, helping to neutralize a discovery before it falls into the wrong hands. Mac would be in science geek heaven…if it weren’t for the pirates. When the ship is overrun, Jack is faced with his worst nightmare: save Mac, or everyone else?
Comments: 131
Kudos: 81





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer/Warning:** Nothing you recognize is mine. Title is Latin and means _in an extremely difficult situation_ , specifically _at the point of death_. Also, I did do a bunch of research on NOAA, diving depths, decompression, submarines, and the like…but in all honesty, most of this is based on imagination and movies. In other words, many, _many_ liberties have been taken. This _quite_ the work of fiction.
> 
> A quick PSA: there are a multitude of movie references and quotes in this one. A bit of a cornucopia of pop culture if you will.
> 
>  **Author’s Note:** So, this all started by me asking my friend **pandi19** ( **waitingforthestarstofall** on tumblr) if she’d ever seen the movie _The Abyss_ (she hadn’t, such a travesty). You see, I wanted to write a Mac and Jack version of a specific scene (if you’ve seen the movie, when you get to it, you’ll know exactly what I’m referring to), and that led to a multitude of back and forth texting building on the idea…and _In Extremis_ was born. 
> 
> My thanks to **pandi19** , for being an idea machine—including the title of this fic—and for knowing which ideas I enjoy bringing to life.
> 
> And big thanks to **IceQueen1** ( **disappearinginq** on tumblr) for the much needed sanity check. It’s greatly appreciated.
> 
> Sincerely hope you all enjoy!

_When it comes to the safety of these people, there's me and then there's God, understand?  
_ \- Virgil ‘Bud’ Brigman, _The Abyss_

**PART ONE**

**Mac**   
_Los Angeles  
Friday afternoon_

He had work to do.

Jack would disagree; in all the years MacGyver had known Jack Dalton he’d never once allowed blame to rest on Mac’s shoulders. For anything.

But this time… _this time_ , it belonged there.

After they’d returned Stateside with Worthy intact—and Dalton’s Heroes had celebrated a successful mission on Mac’s deck—Jack had tried to offer an apology. Or an explanation. Mac wasn’t sure, but his own guilt had been chipping away at him for so long he couldn’t stomach the idea of Jack apologizing to _him_.

Not after Mac had been the one to leave.

He’d shrugged it off, wanting a shift back to _before_. To the way things were before he’d walked away from the Phoenix, from his family, and from Jack.

From the moment they’d tried to wipe the floor with each other back in the Afghanistan barracks when Mac was only 19 years old, Jack had been by his side. He’d watched Mac’s six, followed his crazy schemes, kept him alive. He’d stayed the course during the whole search for Mac’s father, encouraging, supporting, and bolstering Mac—whatever the situation required.

An amalgamation of father and brother, Jack was steadfast. But when caught in the cloud of unique pain born from betrayal, Mac had forced him to stay behind. Eight years spent in each other’s pockets had vanished as Mac’s heart burned with a fire equivalent to the Phoenix their team was named after.

So caught up was he in the misery of learning the degree to which his father had pulled his strings, Mac didn’t even think about what his leaving might do to Jack. For three months he’d simply…pretended.

A different self, a different life, a different past, a different future.

In the back of his mind, he’d known Jack would find him, would keep tabs on him. But even the messages Jack had left him hadn’t truly driven home the agony he was putting his friend through with his absence. Not until the moment his father, the one person he never wanted to see again—despite spending so long searching for him—showed up asking him to help find the one person who’d never let him down.

Rescuing Jack from the Russians hadn’t changed Mac’s mind—after all, there was Nasha to consider. He’d found a sense of peace with her. A purpose of his _own_ design. Something he’d not felt in…well, ever, really.

He’d been prepared to return to that pretend life the moment Jack was safe and sound—and get away from his father’s puppet-master-like control.

Until Murdoc.

Until Jill.

After that…every choice became tangled in a web of _before_ and _after_.

There had been a shift with Jack. Mac realized belatedly that he’d taken their bond for granted and the person who’d always had his back, who’d said he’d never recover if Mac had died on his watch, had constructed a wall between them.

It was transparent, fragile…but tangible.

Mac could see to the other side—the side he wanted to be standing on—but he had no idea how to scale it. There wasn’t a formula or theory he could apply. There wasn’t a cipher he was missing. It was a wall built on the pain of heartbreak and uncertainty. Building blocks Mac knew too well.

It wasn’t until he practically became a stowaway on Jack’s personal rescue mission—meeting the men who’d served with Jack before him, learning how critical Worthy had been to Jack’s very survival, saw once more what Jack was willing to go through to save a friend—that he grasped some level of the hurt he’d caused his friend by leaving.

He’d been shaken by the realization that the emptiness inside of him had a shape. And he suddenly recognized where Jack had left some handholds for him to scale the wall.

The guilt at what his actions had rendered tainted the genuine remorse he’d felt when Jack apologized and Mac knew his shrugging it off—thinking to erase the bruises left on Jack’s heart and the cracks in his psyche by deflecting attention—wasn’t damn near good enough.

He had work to do, and this time, he was ready.

Armed with enough Indian food to sustain a small army, the 30th anniversary edition DVD of _Die Hard_ , and a six-pack of Jack’s favorite beer, Mac drove to Jack’s apartment. He hadn’t called ahead, but Riley confirmed that Jack was home. When he’d apologized to her for using her skills to spy on their friend, she quickly reassured him.

 _“This is nothing,”_ her low, soft chuckle reaching his ear through the phone lines. _“You know he had me literally hijacking multiple satellites searching the globe for you after you took off, right?_ And _when he found you, he had me set up a schedule of reminders for when the satellite would be in orbit over your location each day. Each. Day.”_

Mac had blinked, pulling the phone from his ear to look at the face before reengaging. “I, uh…didn’t realize he’d been that….”

_“Obsessive?”_

“Dedicated,” Mac finished lamely.

Riley had sighed. _“Mac, you’re the smartest person I know—but when it comes to people, sometimes you could use some Cliffs Notes.”_

Mac hadn’t argued with her, merely offered his thanks for confirming Jack’s twenty, then headed out of his place armed with bonding supplies. When Jack opened the door, the surprise on his face confirmed Mac had made the right choice.

“What’s all this?” Jack asked, his grin bouncing up reflexively before he tempered it in a controlled motion that tugged at Mac’s conscience.

“Well,” Mac stepped inside as Jack pivoted back, opening the door wide enough for all the bags to come through with him. “Figured, we haven’t had an afternoon off in a while—and since this is the 30th anniversary of John McClane saving Nakatomi Tower from Hans Gruber—”

“Naw, you didn’t,” Jack closed the door as Mac set the bags of food and beer on the kitchen counter. “Badmaash?”

Mac grinned back at his friend. “Badmaash,” he confirmed, their favorite Indian restaurant.

Jack leaned over one of the open bags and inhaled. “You like me, you _really_ like me,” he teased, turning to grab a couple of plates from his cabinet.

Mac rolled his lips against his teeth, leaning against the counter and watching Jack bounce around his kitchen like a kid, humming _Ode to Joy_ in quiet celebration of their pending _Die Hard_ viewing. He accepted the bottle of beer after Jack used the edge of the countertop to pop the top and took a long swallow before he spoke.

“About that,” he started, clearing his throat as his voice cracked. Jack stopped humming and tilted his head to indicate he was listening but didn’t look over at him. “I, uh…I need to say something.”

Jack scooped food onto one plate, then handed it to Mac before serving up his own. “I’m all ears, Hoss.”

“I’m…I was wrong.”

At this Jack stilled. He set the plate of food down on the counter next to the bags and turned slowly to face Mac, licking curry from the pad of his thumb.

“Come again?”

“When I left,” Mac clarified. “I shouldn’t have…done it the way I did. I shouldn’t have…hidden from you.”

Jack sank back against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest, his eyes on the toes of his boots.

“Is that what this is about?”

Mac took a slow breath. If unhappiness could manifest itself under the skin, it had in him over the last few weeks, coiling in his muscles and trembling under the surface of every part of him. He wanted to deny that Jack was right—that he’d had to resort to gifts and…and _bribery_ to generate a moment of authenticity between them.

But the reality was this: his compass was skewed without Jack. He couldn’t track his North Star; his route home was all switchbacks and detours.

And he was so damn tired of being lost.

“Well, I _was_ also hungry for Indian food,” he started, but Jack’s expression challenged him. “But, uh…yeah. Mostly.”

“Kid,” Jack shook his head, a sad smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, still not looking at Mac. “You got nothing to apologize for. And if you did,” he dragged his eyes up, pinning Mac with a look of such sincerity it took his breath away, “you made up for it with Worthy.”

Mac started to shake his head, not ready to be let off the hook.

“Ah, I’m serious, now,” Jack held up a hand, stilling Mac’s instinctive denial. “That was _everything_ , bud. Worthy…he saved me, Mac. And you helped me save him. We’re good.”

Jack’s eyes crinkled at the corners in that way he had that left Mac with a feeling like coming home.

“I just…left,” Mac confessed. “I acted like some…spoiled teenager. Running away from home because I was mad at my dad.”

Jack huffed, popping the top off another beer bottle. “That’s like…a Nakatomi Tower-sized simplification,” he grinned, taking a long pull from the bottle. “After looking for your dad for…what? A year? You find out not only was he your boss, but over the last fifteen years, he’s betrayed you in ways…hell, I’ll _never_ understand.”

Mac glanced down, feeling a warm flush of gratitude heating his face. “Your Pop wouldn’t have done the same, you mean?”

“Shoot,” Jack bounced his head back. “No offense meant, man, but my Pop would’ve beaten the daylights outta Oversight for the way he’s treated his own kid.”

“Wouldn’t mind seeing that,” Mac smiled softly.

Finding out who his dad really was, where he’d been for so many years, for all the time Mac had been searching for him…it had broken something in Mac. Walking away from everything—and everyone—connected to his father, he’d been able to repair the cracks inside himself with tape and fill the holes in his heart with paper, but the world kept burning through him.

And the tape kept coming loose.

Feeling Jack’s eyes on him, Mac took a breath, determined to make sure things were right between them. “Still, I…could’ve said something. Reached out. Reassured you.”

Jack didn’t say anything; he simply folded one arm across his chest and lifted the mouth of the bottle to his lips.

“You’ve been there for me for…well, everything,” Mac acknowledged.

“Not everything,” Jack quietly stated. “There’s plenty you’ve had to handle on your own, bud. Don’t minimize that.”

“I just—”

Jack pivoted then, facing Mac. He set his beer on the counter and rested both hands on Mac’s shoulders, their weight enough to draw Mac’s eyes upward.

“Listen, Angus,” he said, dropping that name like a statement, MacGyver’s entire being reacting to it. “You’re allowed to choose _you_ in this life. You’re allowed to have moments where it’s all too much. And you’re allowed to want to escape them.”

Mac blinked at his friend—his Overwatch, his _partner_ —and realized Jack was once again doing what he always did: removing the burden of fault from Mac’s shoulders. And this time…he wanted to let him. Because it was a heavy, heavy weight.

“You hear me?”

“I hear you,” Mac nodded, swallowing the knot of emotions that sat heavy and tight at the base of his throat.

Jack ducked slightly to once more pin Mac with a calculating gaze. “You sure?”

Mac swallowed, then took a shallow breath. “As sure as John McClane was about jumping off a building tied to a fire hose like a weaponized human pendulum.”

“That’s not…,” Jack frowned at him, shaking his head as he picked up his plate from the counter. “We gotta work on your metaphors, dude. McClane made that jump using hope as a strategy.”

Mac bounced his head, following Jack to his couch with the DVD under his plate. “First of all, it was a simile, not a metaphor. And second…I kinda feel that’s our M.O.”

Jack settled on the couch with a contented sight. “Thanks to you, Mr. Improv.”

They started the movie, working their way through the food and beer, Jack providing his personal commentary. Mac felt himself begin to uncoil—not even recognizing the sensation at first until Jack handed him his fourth beer. He was tucked up against the arm of the couch, his head back, the beer held loosely in his grip.

He’d missed this. Missed _them_.

“What happened to McClane’s dog?” he asked, eyes on the shot of the beleaguered hero dragging himself toward where Hans Gruber held his wife hostage on the top floor of the building.

Jack shot him a look. “Dog?”

“Yeah, he had a dog named Sam,” Mac muttered, not bothering to lift his head from the couch. He felt loose and relaxed—safe in a way he’d not felt in…he couldn’t remember how long.

Jack shifted until he was mostly facing Mac, his back against the opposite arm of the couch. “Are you messing with me right now? He’s a New York cop in L.A. How’s he gonna have a dog?”

Mac frowned. “Coulda sworn he had a dog.”

Jack shook his head. “You’re confusing _Lethal Weapon_ and _Die Hard_ again, bud. Martin Riggs had a dog named Sam.”

Mac tilted his beer toward Jack in concession. “That’s it. Always confuse those two movies.”

“Now, that’s just wrong. They’re nothing alike.”

Mac lifted an eyebrow, tipping the neck of his bottle toward the TV. “They’re… _kinda_ similar, though.”

Totally ignoring Hans Gruber’s dramatic fall from the top of the Tower, Jack drew up a leg on the couch and leaned toward Mac, all in.

“Name one way they’re alike,” he challenged.

Mac shrugged. “They’re about cops…the heroes have messed up marriages—”

“Martin Riggs’ wife was _dead_ , dude. John McClane gets his wife back.”

“Kinda,” Mac pointed out.

Jack sat back. “Yeah, she wasn’t really in the picture for the third and fourth movies.”

They watched as McClane hugged his wife.

“He coulda used a dog named Sam,” Mac commented, just to see what Jack would say.

“I’m gonna get _you_ a dog named Sam,” Jack flung a throw pillow at him.

Laughing, Mac batted it away. “I had a dog, when I was a kid.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Jack replied. “Archipelago.”

Mac laughed harder. “Archimedes,” he corrected.

Jack grinned. “I was close.”

Mac wiped his eyes, trying to catch his breath. “Nasha has a dog,” he revealed.

Jack blinked at him, finishing his beer. “Named Sam?”

“Sadly no,” Mac replied. “Matsala. Means ‘trouble’ in Hausa.”

Jack smiled. “Sounds like my kind of dog.”

“He liked me,” Mac smiled, remembering. “Liked me more than Nasha if you want to know the truth. Slept next to me from the first night I showed up at that village. I miss him.”

Jack was quiet for a moment as the credits rolled. “Do you miss her?”

Mac nodded, the smile sliding from his face as if it was simply too heavy.

“Do you miss being there?”

Mac swallowed. He wasn’t quite ready to go there. Examining his feelings about Nasha meant examining the circumstances that led to his meeting her.

“I made a promise,” he reminded Jack. “I stay until we get Murdoc.”

“That’s not what I asked you, bud,” Jack replied quietly.

Mac looked over at him, his eyes burning. “I’m not ready to leave,” he replied. It felt too…raw, too _real_ to finish that statement with the words echoing in his head: _without you_.

Jack nodded; his lips folded against his teeth as if in thought. Mac wanted to push him to reveal what was behind that careful expression, but the ring of Jack’s cell phone startled both. Jack looked at the caller ID, then shot a side-eyed glance at Mac.

“Matty,” he revealed, hitting speaker, then, “Hey, Matilda, what’s up?”

 _“Is MacGyver with you?”_ Matty’s voice sounded brittle. It brought Mac upright from his slouched position.

“You bet. He’s right here, drinking beers and watching movies, seeing as how it _is_ his day off.”

 _“Sorry, Jack,”_ Matty sighed, and that straightened Jack’s shoulders. They exchanged a glance. Matty Webber simply did not apologize. _“I’d been trying to reach him for the last hour. I just…got worried.”_

“I’m sorry, Matty,” Mac replied sincerely. His abrupt departure had left marks on more than Jack, it seemed. “I left my phone in the car.”

“What’s up? Got a job?” Jack asked, shifting the phone in his grip as he closed the distance between himself and Mac.

 _“In a way,”_ Matty said, the hesitancy in her voice pulling Mac’s brows closer. _“The Phoenix has been asked for a favor—specifically, for Mac.”_

“Me?”

 _“It’s not an official mission—though you would have the full support of the Phoenix Foundation if you cho_ _o_ _se to accept.”_

Mac narrowed his eyes. “You mean, my father approves.”

 _“In a way,”_ Matty hedged. _“He’s not happy about it, but…he can’t really say no to this one.”_

Jack shot Mac a look, one Mac could read all too well: _don’t let his approval factor into your decision._

“What’s the favor?” Mac asked.

 _“It would be better if you came in and I walked you through it,”_ Matty replied. _“And Jack…you don’t have to come. It_ is _your day off.”_

Mac looked over at his friend, saw the uncertainty in Jack’s eyes. It was the same expression he’d seen at the plane just before they’d left to round up the crew who would save Worthy, when Jack told him he didn’t know where they stood. An expression Mac never wanted to see on Jack’s face again.

“We’re a package deal,” Mac replied.

The way Jack’s shoulders dropped, and the lines disappeared from his forehead, told Mac he’d made the right call.

“We’ll be there in an hour,” Jack promised.

 _“Call an Uber,”_ Matty ordered, drawing a grin from both men.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jack replied before disconnecting the call.

“You good with this?” Mac asked before they moved from the couch. “I don’t know what we just signed up for.”

Jack clapped a hand on Mac’s shoulder. “We’re partners, bud. What happens to you, happens to me.”

Mac smiled, stood, then stopped. “Wait. Did you just…quote _Lethal Weapon_?”

Jack gathered up the empty plates. “I have a wide array of movie knowledge at my fingertips,” he replied with a smirk.

They did end up calling an Uber—no reason to risk driving in L.A. traffic after several beers. By the time they arrived at the Phoenix, it was dark. As they headed to the War Room, Mac felt his gut clench in anticipation of this ‘favor’. He leaned against the wall of the elevator as Jack pushed the button.

“Think my dad’s going to be there?” he asked, arms crossed over his chest.

Jack huffed, eyes on the changing numbers. “Not if he knows what’s good for him.”

Mac’s mouth tugged up in a small grin. As they exited the elevator, Mac saw the War Room windows were already frosted. Jack held out a hand and he instinctively slowed his stride so that he was behind Jack. They paused as Jack glanced into the room, then looked back at Mac with a nod.

His entire being breathed once more knowing he wasn’t going to have to face his father in this moment. If it made him less of a man, well, he didn’t want to focus on that fact too much. He entered and saw Matty waiting for them, iPad in hand.

“So, what’s going on, Matty?” Jack asked as Mac shut the door behind them.

“Before I start, I want to repeat that this is a _favor_.” She looked at both, expression solemn. “Neither of you have to do this.”

Mac felt the knot in his gut immediately return full force but took his cue from Jack’s relaxed stance.

“How about you just give us the details and we’ll let you know?” Jack offered, sinking down on the arm of the leather couch.

Mac’s eyes landed on the bowl of paperclips in the middle of the table and he reflexively smiled, glancing at Matty. She smiled back, shoulders flinching in a soft shrug. Striding to the table, Mac leaned forward and plucked two paperclips from the bowl, letting his subconscious drive his fingers as Matty pulled up a split screen: a plot of the North Atlantic Ocean and an aerial view of a large research vessel.

“This is the _Zephyr_ ,” she nodded toward the ship. “It’s a Research Vessel out of Canada’s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations…think NOAA. They’re tasked with studying the effects of climate change on the ocean currents and assessing how that will ultimately impact crop development over the next decade…and it seems they’ve stumbled across a shipwreck.”

Mac’s eyebrows bounced up and Jack shot to his feet.

“Shipwreck! We talking pirate treasure? Gold doubloons?”

Mac shook his head, intrigued. “Most likely it’s an ocean liner—I mean, that’s how Ballard discovered the _Titanic_ , which, incidentally, went down in the North Atlantic—”

“Enough, both of you,” Matty cut Mac off with an exasperated roll of her eyes. “It’s not that kind of shipwreck.”

Jack glanced over at Mac and they shrugged their shoulders in unison.

With a sigh, Matty continued. “It appears to be the remains of a Russian submarine that—if we’ve properly identified it—went missing in the mid 1980’s.” She shot a look over at Jack, her finger raised. “And if I hear one reference to the _Red October_ , you’re off the mission.”

Mac glanced at Jack, suppressing a grin at the way Jack bit into his bottom lip to keep quiet.

“It’s killing you, isn’t it?” Mac muttered.

“It really kinda is,” Jack nodded, practically vibrating.

Matty arched an eyebrow at them. “If I may continue?”

Mac lifted his chin, the smile still at home on his face as Jack crossed his arms over his chest.

“If this is what we think it is, the sub landed on an underwater landmass—”

Jack frowned. “Like Atlantis?”

“More like an underwater atoll or ridge,” Mac corrected, watching as Matty zeroed in on the location of the _Zephyr_. “There are all sorts of almost mountainous ridge lines and deep valleys in the ocean.”

Matty nodded. “Exactly,” she pulled something up on the iPad and displayed it onscreen. “And as you can see, the sub is more or less intact.”

The faded, blurred images on screen showed the nose of a submarine, the vessel lying on its side, a large hole punched through the hull. The still images shifted through a series—clearly taken by a remote camera with limited access to the full vessel. Mac and Jack moved closer to the screen heads tilted in unison as they worked to make out the markings until they pulled up short at the sight of Cyrillic lettering on the hull.

“Holy shit,” Jack breathed.

“What is it?” Mac asked, looking from the screen to Jack’s face, gone slack with surprise or worry.

“It’s an Akula,” Jack stated, looking down at Matty, his eyes hard. “Nuclear-powered attack subs. There were only like…ten of them commissioned between ’84 and ’90.”

Mac blinked in surprise. “I didn’t know you knew that much about subs,” he said.

Jack lifted a shoulder. “I don’t; I know a lot about Russians.”

“You’re absolutely right, Jack,” Matty nodded. “The Akula-class submarines are still in commission, but in the ‘80s, there weren’t many in service. This particular sub was marked as scuttled in 1986 with its full complement of 62 souls aboard.” She looked over at the images on screen. “There should be nothing left of it.”

“That’s a whole lot more than nothing,” Jack muttered, resting his hands on his hips, eyes narrowed in thought. “You said a Canadian NOAA ship discovered it?”

Matty nodded.

“Any way to see if the armament is intact?” Mac spoke up, eyes darting between his two mentors.

Jack tilted his head in thought. “Hell, those sub classes were armed to the teeth—something like…30 torpedoes, surface to air missiles, cruise missiles…not to mention they were powered by a pressurized water nuclear reactor.”

“We haven’t been able to determine from the photos provided, but the assessment based on the visible damage is that the weapons went down with the sub,” Matty replied.

Mac narrowed his eyes, resting his elbow on his crossed arm, bouncing the paperclips against his bottom lip. “I can understand engaging the Phoenix,” he mused aloud. “The sub went down in International waters, based on the coordinates here, and if the Canadians discovered it, they aren’t going to want to alert the Russians…and the research vessel wouldn’t have the equipment aboard to bring it up….”

He trailed off as Matty nodded, watching him pull the facts together to form a complete picture.

“But you said this was a _favor_ …not an official mission?”

“That’s correct,” Matty nodded, setting the iPad down on the table next to the bowl of paperclips as she focused solely on Mac. “The lead researcher on the _Zephyr_ is a Marine Biologist named Raif Groendyke,” she said. At Mac’s blank stare, she continued. “He was one of the 31 students you helped save the day Zoe Okuda drowned.”

And just like that, Mac was painfully focused.

The room around him became sharp—colors too bright, sound too loud. A strange panic swept through him with such purity that he stumbled backwards, the edge of the chair hitting the back of his knees. He sank down to the arm, a scream howling inside him that stalled before it reached his throat.

A roaring sound beat against his ears and he helplessly looked toward the large screen, seeing Zoe’s tremulous smile instead of the images of the submarine and coordinates of the _Zephyr_.

“Mac?”

Jack’s voice was closer than Mac expected, and he jerked back in surprise, tipping sideways as his balance left him. Jack’s arm thrust out quickly, righting him, his hand moving to grip the back of Mac’s neck in an anchoring touch.

“You okay, bud?”

Mac dragged his eyes from the large screen to his partner’s face. He watched Jack’s lips move, unable to connect the sound to meaning, as if Jack were speaking in another language.

“You with me?”

He shut his eyes, trying to focus. He wanted to answer—he was _supposed_ to answer. He tried to see the words in his mind before he formed them, but they kept getting blown away by the image of Zoe’s dark eyes, the sound of her frightened, desperate gasps.

Nothing stayed long enough for him to make his mouth work.

Jack’s other hand joined his first and now Mac could feel the strength in his partner’s grip framing both sides of his face, palms at his jawline. It was a familiar stance, one that had brought Mac back from the edge before, and he mentally climbed into the touch.

“Easy, kiddo,” Jack’s voice anchored him, bracing him against the unexpected feeling of the ground opening beneath him. “You’re okay.”

“Y-yeah,” Mac managed to stutter. “S-sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Jack reassured him, his fingers tightening at the back of Mac’s neck, giving him something to focus on, drawing him back to _now_.

Not to breaking the windows of the War Room to make room so that he could build something— _anything_ —that would save all the people aboard Zoe’s ship. Something that would keep her from drowning in the freezing water, sacrificing herself for her team. Failing at both.

“I’m okay,” Mac said, bracing his hands on the edge of the chair arm. Jack released one of his hands as Mac dropped his head low, finding his balance. “Just…caught me by surprise.”

“You sure?”

Mac pulled his head upright, Jack’s hand at the back of his neck a constant pressure he used to crawl his way back to present. Jack kept his eyes on Mac’s, studying him the way Mac studied an IED, looking for edges and weak spots.

He nodded, meeting Jack’s gaze directly, pulling every ounce of sincerity he could into his reply. “I’m sure.”

“I am sorry, Mac,” Matty said, her voice soft with sincerity.

“What…uh…what did this Groendyke guy say?” Mac asked, clearing his throat.

Pausing, her dark eyes on him for another beat, Matty pressed her lips together. “I know what this means for you, Mac,” she said, offering him one last out. “You can still say no.”

Mac shot a slightly panicked glance at Jack. He wanted— _needed_ —to do this, to try once more to help one of Zoe’s team. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to do it without Jack. Not now….

“We’re in,” Jack replied for both, eyes on Mac. When Mac nodded back at him, Jack released his hold, straightening up, but staying close.

“Well, in that case, we have a helo gearing up for cold weather transport now,” Matty told them, squaring her shoulders. “The mission is to verify the submarine’s armament is intact, and to safely destroy the uranium in the nuclear reactor before it can be used by any one country.”

“Whoa, hold up,” Jack lifted both hands in front of him as though in surrender. “Destroy the _what_ now?”

“Reactors use uranium for nuclear fuel,” Mac spoke up, feeling the world balancing around him once more as science took hold of his brain. “It produces heat through fission and that heat is used to make steam that spins the turbine to create electricity and power the sub.”

“That’s all well and good, Mr. Wizard, but it starts with _uranium_ ,” Jack crossed his arms once more. “And last I checked uranium was bad news.”

“It’s been underwater for over thirty years,” Mac reminded him. “Assuming the casing is intact—and that’s pretty safe to assume since we’re looking at a sub and not a crater—it’s harmless in its current form. It’s more what can be done with it that’s the problem.”

“How far down is the sub?” Jack asked.

“Groendyke estimates the atoll to be at 137 feet,” Matty reported. “You would need a deep dive suit to enter the sub. Since he knew you were EOD and would be accustomed to operating within that kind of gear, _and_ you saved his life—”

“Zoe did that,” Mac instantly protested.

“—he figured you would be the best equipped, most neutral option to render the sub safe before they had to inform any one government of its existence.”

“Hang on—you’re telling us Oversight hasn’t alerted the higher ups?” Jack asked, his expression mirroring Mac’s incredulity.

Matty lifted her shoulders. “He understood the seriousness of this find in today’s political environment,” she replied. “The last thing we need is to provide the current US President with a potential weapon and the Russians will be so eager to cover up a lost submarine there’s no telling what they will do. Best approach is to alert the Canadian Prime Minister once the nuclear element is removed.”

“And the torpedoes? Missiles?”

“In the hands of the Canadians?” Matty asked, huffing a relieved laugh. “They’ll end up in a museum, if anything.”

Jack tipped his head in concession.

“The _Zephyr_ has the equipment we’ll need?” Mac asked.

“Most of it,” Matty nodded. “You can load the rest on the helo.”

“Wheels up, when?”

“The sooner the better,” Matty looked at Jack. “We need to be quick and quiet about this before the NOAA crew has to report back in.”

Mac and Jack nodded in unison.

“We’re ready,” Mac replied. He dropped the paperclips he’d been twisted onto the table, catching Jack’s amused expression as he stepped away.

“What is it?”

Jack chuckled, leading the way out of the War Room. “Your brain is an amazing place, brother.”

Mac drew his head back with a confused smile. “Why do you say that?”

“Your paperclip art back there,” Jack jerked a thumb over his shoulder as they paused at the elevator. “It’s a shark.”

“Yeah…so?” Mac shrugged his shoulders, clasping one wrist in the opposite hand.

The elevator dinged and Jack stepped in, automatically blocking the door for Mac to enter. The bemused expression on his face confused Mac even further.

“In Russian, Akula means ‘shark’,” Jack revealed.

Mac blinked in surprise. “Huh,” he replied.

“’Huh’, he says,” Jack chuckled again. “Tell me you didn’t learn Russian while you were in Nigeria.”

“Well, no…,” Mac offered his friend a side-eyed glance as the doors closed behind him. “But I did see _The Hunt for Red October_ once, so….”

Jack laughed—a sound so free of the mental chains Mac had been attaching to them since he returned from Nigeria that he couldn’t help but join in. The elevator opened and they stepped out, grins still stretching their faces wide.

“I forgot how much I like that sound,” Jack said, pushing open the doors to the gear room.

“What sound?” Mac asked innocently, eyes skimming the TAC vests and equipment.

“You laughing,” Jack replied, glancing over his shoulder. “Just haven’t heard it in a while.”

Mac sobered slightly. “Yeah,” he acknowledged. “I, uh…haven’t really felt like it much.”

“Well, maybe we can do something about that,” Jack hefted one of the TAC vests. “Y’know, after we get back from our swim in the North Atlantic.”

Mac glanced down at his cargo pants, boots, and gray Henley then over at Jack’s jeans, boots, and black T-shirt. They hadn’t changed clothes from their afternoon off and were better prepared for July in California than the freezing weather they were headed toward. He grabbed his go-bag, rifling through its contents: extra long-sleeved T-shirt, flannel shirt, sweats, thermal underwear—that’ll come in handy—and socks.

“You got these, yeah?” Mac held up his thermal shirt.

Jack gave him a thumbs up, shoving the contents of his go-bag into one of the two duffels he’d set out. As they continued to gather their gear, Mac’s brain down shifted to mission specs.

“Have you done anything like this before?” he asked.

“Well, I’ve been on an aircraft carrier,” Jack acknowledged. “And then there was that super-fun time you and I got our backsides frostbitten in Siberia.”

“Don’t remind me,” Mac muttered. “It’s going to be cold.”

“Understatement of the century, brother,” Jack grabbed a parka and tossed it to Mac. “And I know from experience your brain has a hard time engaging when you’re too cold, so make sure you bundle up.”

They filled duffels with the contents of the go-bags, explosive equipment, and Mac’s EOD kit he constantly kept fully stocked. Almost as an afterthought, Jack grabbed a med kit and challenged Mac’s raised eyebrow with a _zip it_ hand gesture.

“The amount of times we’ve had to put each other back together on one of these things doesn’t bear counting,” Jack told him, shouldering his bag. “Just go with me on this one.”

“You know there’ll be a physician on the ship,” Mac pointed out as they headed to the tarmac.

Jack glanced at him. “And what if that person is compromised? Huh? You think I’m going to half-ass it when it comes to your safety? Not a chance, brother.”

Subdued by gratitude and humility, Mac followed Jack out to where the helo was waiting. Riley stood just outside the door, a black case in one hand.

“Well, hey Ri,” Jack grinned at her. “You got nothing better to do on a Friday night?”

“Apparently not,” Riley smiled, her dark eyes taking them both in. “Matty caught me up. I’m proud of you for doing this, Mac,” she reached out and drew him into a quick hug.

Mac wrapped one arm around her slim waist, relishing her warmth against him for a moment. She’d been there—in the room, with him—when Zoe’s signal was lost. When he’d had to accept the reality that he couldn’t save her. When he’d had to listen as she gasped for her last breath.

“Thanks, Riles,” he whispered.

“Here,” she shoved the black box toward Jack. “These are the latest comms Bozer and I have rigged up. They’ll allow you to keep in contact with up to eight people—party-line, style. No private channels. But they will work 600 feet down.”

“However,” Matty broke in, “ _you_ would be crushed at that depth, so don’t go testing them out.”

“Roger that, boss,” Jack nodded solemnly.

“I uploaded some data to your phones about the _Zephyr_ ,” Riley told them, eyes on Mac once more. “Some light reading to take your mind off the helo ride.”

Mac’s eyebrows went up in surprise. He hadn’t been a fan of helicopters since the one he and Jack had been in went down transporting a prisoner in Kazakhstan. He had to hand it to Riley—she always kept an eye on what might trigger him.

“Thanks.”

“You’ll lose contact with us for a while once you’re on the _Zephyr_ ,” Riley told them. “We have to wait for the satellite to move over the coordinates, so make sure you check in on the regular.”

“Will do,” Mac nodded, smiling at her.

Matty looked at Jack. “Take care of—” she glanced once at Mac, then back at Jack, “each other.”

Mac didn’t miss Jack’s knowing smile.

“Just got our team back together,” Matty continued. “I’d like to keep it that way for a bit.”

“Me too,” Mac reassured her.

Waving at Matty and Riley, they climbed into the helo, securing their equipment, and fastening their five-point harnesses. As they flew over the lights of Los Angeles, heading across the country toward the North Atlantic coordinates, Mac pulled up the details Riley had sent them.

“Okay,” he said into the headgear, his microphone at his lips. “The _Zephyr_ is one of the smaller NOAA research vessels. Crew of about twenty, research team of five.”

“Hang on a second, bud,” Jack shifted in his seat, looking over at Mac next to him. “We just going to skim over you almost having a panic attack back there?”

Mac blinked. He had, in fact, thought they would just move past it. He should have realized Jack was simply waiting until they were alone, and on a closed channel, before asking him about it.

“I didn’t mean to,” Mac replied, furrowing his eyebrows, and staring blindly at his phone screen.

Jack knocked his elbow against Mac’s arm. “Of course, you didn’t mean to. I’m just wanting to know what I need to watch for—I wasn’t there when you…when Zoe….”

Mac looked hurriedly over at Jack. “I know—it’s okay! You were taking care of Riley and Elwood. You didn’t know.”

“Exactly,” Jack pressed. “I didn’t know how hard that loss hit you—not until you went white as a ghost and almost keeled over on me. You need to talk about it?”

Mac paused a moment. Part of him did want to tell Jack about Zoe—about how he’d felt an instant connection with her quick mind and quirky smile. About how they had the same favorite ice cream. About the fact that they admired the same scientists. About how hard he’d fought to save her—how helpless he felt the minute he realized he’d saved everyone _but_ her.

The ache in his chest had an edge to it that he wasn’t sure he could release quite yet. He shook his head, offering Jack a half smile. Jack narrowed his eyes a moment but relented. Mac knew he wasn’t completely off the hook, but he’d take the reprieve.

“Okay,” Jack sat back, bouncing a closed fist on Mac’s knee, his entire demeanor shifting. “But you’re not alone in this, remember that.”

Mac held his partner’s eyes a moment, testing the quiet. Jack simply watched him, eyes crinkling up with acceptance. It was both comfort and camaraderie, two men on the same side of chaos.

“Let’s have it,” Jack rolled his hand in a _continue_ gesture. “Crew of about twenty, five in the research team.”

Mac nodded, scrolling through the data.

“Captain’s name is Dreymon,” he continued. “Looks like they’re set up for four weeks.”

“Any idea how we get down to the sub?” Jack asked.

“The vessel has a pressurized dive pool with a submersible—”

“Dude, like _SeaQuest_?” Jack broke in, grinning.

Mac shook his head, smiling at the man’s irrepressible love of all things pop culture. “Yes—well, except for the fact that the SeaQuest was _actually_ a submarine.”

“Details,” Jack waved a hand.

“Looks like the submersible is almost as old as our sub,” Mac commented, grimacing. “Able to descend with two people down to 250 feet.”

“Good thing our sub’s only at 130 and change,” Jack muttered. “Does the _Zephyr_ have decompression equipment?”

Mac scrolled through the data. “Doesn’t say, but I would hope so.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jack leaned back. “Otherwise, this is going to be a real short trip.”

Mac studied the layout of the _Zephyr_ , describing the ship to Jack from bow to stern. After a bit, Jack stretched his legs out in front of him, crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. There wasn’t much more they would be able to do until they arrived, but Mac felt too wired to sleep. His reaction to being reminded of Zoe’s death had surprised him as well—he was usually much more in-control.

He’d had to be.

But finding out the truth about his father, leaving everyone he knew, and attempting to set up a new life in Nasha’s village had shifted something inside of him. He couldn’t seem to process things the same way, with the necessary detachment that would allow him to fold it neatly and stuff it into a box in his mind.

Things hit him differently now—emotion had edges and his heart was too-often shredded.

He needed to get tougher, to build up emotional callouses, if he was going to find a way to stick out this new reality he’d elected to engage in—one where he knew where his dad was, _who_ his dad was, and simply didn’t acknowledge it. One where he knew a place of peace existed for him, if only he left behind the family he’d found.

So lost in thought was he, Mac didn’t register they’d flown so far north until he realized he was shivering. He grabbed up one of the blankets folded up and tucked into the pockets of the seats, shook one out and covered up Jack, then wrapped the other around his own shoulders. By his estimation, they had about another two hours; he decided to try to sleep, convinced it wouldn’t happen.


	2. Chapter 2

**PART TWO**

**Mac**   
_NOAA ship, Zephyr, the North Atlantic  
Saturday mid-day_

The next thing Mac knew, Jack was shaking him awake and his ears were popping. Muted sunlight filled the interior of the helo and he’d totally lost all sense of time. They’d left in the dark, arrived in the light, and his body hadn’t quite fully engaged.

“Looks like the _Zephyr_ isn’t big enough for this bird to land, bud,” Jack was saying as Mac blinked awake.

“What?” Mac stared at him, trying to shake off the cobwebs resulting from sleeping so hard for such a short amount of time. “What does that mean?”

Jack held up a section of heavy, black rope. “Means we gotta repel.”

Mac felt his heart drop to his toes. He’d done this a few times before—mostly while in Afghanistan, but once when they were DXS—and each time shot terror through his system.

“What about the equipment?”

Jack lifted his chin to a storage space behind them. “There’s a basket back there,” he said. “We lower it down first, then we follow.”

Mac squared his jaw, nodding once. It wasn’t as though he had a choice in the matter. He unbuckled, shrugged into his black parka, then helped Jack get their bags onto the basket. When they opened the side door to drop the rope out, the cold air hit his exposed skin like a thousand tiny knives and he gasped in instinctive reaction.

“God _damn_!” Jack exclaimed into the mic; his breath sucked out by the freezing vacuum. “That’s brisk!”

Mac tried to stay as far from the opened door as he could, without actually plastering himself against the opposite side of the helo. From his perch near his seat he could see the gray bow of the _Zephyr_ below them and several crew in orange vests milling below, ready to grab the dropped basket.

“Here goes,” Jack called, pushing the basket forward on its hooked line, gripping the rope as he leaned out and looked down.

The helo stayed as steady as it could in the opened air of the ocean. Jack wavered twice in the doorway and Mac had to curl his hands into fists to resist reaching out and grabbing him back in.

“Okay, looks like it landed safely,” Jack pulled himself back inside using the seat harnesses. “Our turn, bud.”

Mac nodded but didn’t move. His legs tingled, adrenaline making his blood feel cold and thin.

“You’re gonna remove your helmet, then clip into this here harness,” Jack held up a small web of black straps and silver carabiners, “and then it’s just like any other helo drop.”

Mac nodded again…but still didn’t move. He was looking at the rope, not Jack, but he could feel the older man’s eyes on him.

“I’d offer to go first, but—”

“No,” Mac finally spoke, his voice cracking, “no, I got this. I can do this.”

“You’ve done it before, kid,” Jack’s tone softened. “’course…that was in the desert, and we were landing on solid ground….”

“Not. Helping.”

“C’mon, Mac,” he could tell Jack was grinning at him. “You gonna let a little…,” he glanced out through the opened door and down to the ship, “fifty-some foot drop beat you?”

Mac dragged his eyes from the opened doorway and the rope to Jack’s face. “No.”

“’Course you’re not.”

“I got this.”

“Bet your ass you do,” Jack nodded, his face screwing up in a bit of a wince. “But, uh…you’re gonna need to move a little closer to the door.”

Mac took a breath. Pushed upright. Moved forward. Grabbed the webbing. Harness in, clip on, repel down.

“Nothing to it, kid,” Jack said, tugging on his harness to check that it was secure.

Nothing to it. Nothing to it. Maybe if he said to himself that a few thousand more times, he’d believe it.

“Hey,” Jack said, reaching up to unhook Mac’s protective ear covering and mic. “See you on the other side!” he shouted.

Mac kept his eyes on Jack as he backed to the opened door. Taking another breath, and refusing to think about the drop below him, he stepped back, away from the helo. The frigid wind whipped around him as he loosened his grip periodically, dropping, pausing, dropping, pausing.

It wasn’t _exactly_ like being punched in the head, but it was close enough.

He felt hands grab for his legs, pulling him back from the boat’s edge and onto a solid surface, unhooking his harness. He backed away from the hands until he felt something solid behind him, leaning over to catch his breath as Jack lowered down to the ship.

The hard, harsh wind sent pellets of salt water across the deck and against his face, eyes, hands. It stung, clinging to his lashes and longer tendrils of hair as they smacked against his cheeks. A few minutes later, someone was standing in front of him.

“You with me?” Jack shouted.

Mac pushed himself upright, hollering back against the relentless wind. “Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure,” Mac nodded, trying for a smile. “Just…really hate heights, y’know?”

Jack grinned at him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “I know.”

As the helo pulled in the ropes then lifted up and away, the wind died down to something less painful, and Mac felt he could take an actual breath. Squinting, he felt ice clicking in the creases of his face and at the folds around his lips. Glancing at the crew, he saw they all wore protective covering around their eyes and mouth.

“Let’s get inside!” Jack shouted. “I can’t feel my face!”

Mac nodded, following the crew member who waved them forward to the first door off the bow. The temperature change was drastic, and Mac felt a shiver course through him as his hands and face immediately began to tingle from the warmth.

“Dude,” Jack chuckled next to him. “You got icicles on your eye lashes. Lashcicles.”

Mac shot him a look. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t rub your hair just yet,” he warned. “Your mohawk is frozen.”

Jack’s chuckle abruptly broke off and he frowned, his hand pausing half-way to his hair. Mac grinned and tugged down the zipper of his parka, following the crew member to the bridge where they met Captain Alex Dreymon. Mac was surprised by the man’s youth—he didn’t appear much older than Jack.

“Good to meet you both,” Captain Dreymon said, shaking their hands. “G has a lot of faith that you’ll help us solve this little…problem.”

“G?” Jack asked, frowning.

“He means Groendyke,” said another man, stepping forward. “Ethan Roberts,” he offered a hand. “Second Mate and Navigator of this floating classroom.” His smile rang empty as his green eyes raked over Mac then rested on Jack. “Raif Groendyke is the lead researcher here, but just call him G.” He shrugged. “It’s easier.”

Jack sucked on his teeth, the _tsk_ sound drawing a glance from Mac. Jack remained silent, but Mac felt something slip beneath the edges of his consciousness. A warning light blinking amber.

“Crewman Kirk will show you the mess room, first aid, racks, and the research section of the ship,” Captain Dreymon continued. Mac didn’t miss the side eye glance he shot his Second Mate. “My crew and the research team stay fairly separate,” the Captain said, glancing around the bridge, “but should you need anything as you complete your…your task here,” his eyes landed on Mac, “just reach out. We’re here to help.”

“Same goes, Captain,” Jack nodded solemnly. “We appreciate you letting us aboard, and we’ll do our best to stay out of your hair.”

“We’ll need to check in with our team back in Los Angeles periodically,” Mac spoke up, dragging a hand down his face as the ice that had crusted to his lashes melted in the warmth of the bridge and ran down his face like salty tears. “Can we see the radio room as well?”

Captain Dreymon nodded then said, “Of course—G also has his own communications crew back in the research section. You should be set with them.”

Mac nodded with a smile, then turned toward the young crewman Dreymon had indicated. He looked about twelve, wide blue eyes large and childlike in his thin face, his blond hair buzzed short under his cold-weather cover.

“Crewman?” Mac nodded. Kirk nodded back and started off the bridge toward the stern of the boat.

As they grabbed their duffels from the basket, Jack stepped up behind Kirk. “You on the fast track to captain, Kirk?”

The kid rolled his eyes and shook his head. “First time I heard that one, Sir.”

Mac chuckled as Jack shot him a grin over his shoulder.

“Guessing you don’t want to hear the one I got about Spock, then,” Jack ventured, stepping over the passageway as Kirk moved toward a set of stairs.

“Only if you can make it original,” Kirk shot back.

Mac laughed out loud.

“Challenge accepted, kid,” Jack replied, shaking the ice from his hair, and following Kirk down ladder.

Kirk pointed out the mess hall, informing them that the crew and the research team were on separate rotations for meals, and they’d have to check in with G on when they were up for the next rotation. He gestured to the first aid and physician’s quarters as they moved one deck lower.

“And, trust me,” Kirk paused on the stair and looked back at Jack. “Doc Azar does _not_ appreciate jokes. Like…of any kind.”

“Noted,” Jack bobbed his head, following the young crewman lower.

“You’re already trying to figure out a joke to try on him, aren’t you?” Mac said.

Jack nodded. “You bet your ass.”

“Okay, so here’s the research section of the ship,” Kirk paused outside of a hatch. “This is important.” He looked at Jack.

“I’m listening,” Jack defended, glancing sideways at Mac. “What? I am.”

“Stop trying to think of jokes to try on the doctor,” Mac muttered.

“I can do two things at once,” Jack shrugged with his eyebrows.

Mac rolled his eyes. “Go ahead, Crewman Kirk.”

Kirk took a breath, the expression on his face a clear indication that he didn’t know if the two men in front of him were going to be his entertainment or his downfall. “Okay, so there are two hatches leading to the research section. The first door has to close behind you and the green light has to come on before you can open the second one.”

“Pressurized chamber,” Mac recognized.

Kirk nodded. “If both doors are opened at once, the pressure in the research section shifts and the dive chamber can flood the entire ship.”

“Are there secondary failsafe’s?” Jack asked, showing he was clearly paying attention.

Kirk nodded again. “The dive chamber has a set of flood doors that can be dropped from the outside, but the risk is if anyone is caught inside the chamber, they can’t get out unless someone opens it from the other side.”

Jack shuddered. “So, let’s just make sure that doesn’t happen, how ‘bout?”

“Yeah, believe me,” Kirk shook his head, “I’m happy to not have to go in there.”

He hit a buzzer next to the hatch. A voice echoed through the quiet passageway.

_“Yeah.”_

“Got the two Phoenix guys here to see G,” Kirk said into the comm.

_“Oh, goody. The rock stars are here,”_ the voice replied, and Mac heard the scorn loud and clear. He exchanged a look with Jack.

“C’mon, Kiwanuka,” Kirk sighed. “Just go get him.” He glanced over at Mac, an expression of apology on his face. He shifted his stance as they waited. “Michael Kiwanuka,” he clarified. “Most of G’s crew are great, but that guy can be a real jerk…I’m probably not supposed to tell you that, though.”

“We get it,” Mac broke in as he saw Jack’s mouth drop open to express his own opinion in the matter. “Don’t worry about it,” he smiled, trying to reassure the young crewman.

A loud click could be heard, followed by a hiss, and the wheel on the hatch in front of them turned slightly before the door opened and a large, Norwegian-looking man stepped out. He looked to be no older than Mac; the blond beard narrowing into a point at his chin and adorned by three short braids with differently colored beads at the ends aging him somewhat.

Mac searched his memory but couldn’t recall the faces of anyone on Zoe’s team—only her. He took a bracing breath, squaring his shoulders, and forced himself to meet the man’s pale blue eyes.

“MacGyver,” Groendyke greeted with a wide, almost shark-like smile.

The only thing that softened the startling image was the light that hit his eyes with genuine warmth. He grasped Mac’s hand in a hearty greeting that reverberated through Mac’s entire frame.

“Dalton,” he shook Jack’s hand with equal fervor. “Damn glad to meet you both.”

“Likewise,” Jack greeted. “Sorry it’s under such…uh…complicated circumstances.”

“Mr. Groendyke,” Mac started, noting the immediate flush on Groendyke’s pale cheeks.

“Call me G, please,” he requested. “It’s easier and…I don’t instinctively look over my shoulder for my father.”

Mac grinned. He could sympathize. “G, we don’t want to get in the way of what your team is doing here—”

“Oh, if you’re referring to Kiwanuka,” G waved a hand over his shoulder, “don’t sweat it. He’s an asshole, but he’s a brilliant botanist, so we put up with him. He won’t bother you. C’mon, let me introduce you to the rest of the team.” He grinned at Kirk with a tip of his chin. “Thanks, Kirk.”

Kirk nodded back, then glanced at Jack. “It’s gotta be original,” he reminded him, then headed back up the ladder.

Jack chuckled. “I think I like that kid,” he said to Mac as they followed G into the mid-way between the hatches.

Mac watched as the door behind them shut, the light next to the second door going from red to green, and G grabbed the latch to let them into the research section. They were immediately hit with the driving beats of music echoing through the open chamber.

“Beastie Boys?” Mac grinned.

“That would be our meteorologist, Zane Huron,” G nodded with a roll of his eyes. “Believe it or not, it helps him concentrate.”

Mac smiled, already appreciating G’s inclusive style with his team. The room was huge—easily half a football field from one bulkhead to the other. In the center, Mac could see the dive pool with the mini sub anchored to one side, the flood doors locked in place about twenty feet above his head. At the far end were a series of hatches, several of them closed, that he surmised to be sleeping quarters, and behind them were open areas with monitors, computers, and multiple pieces of lab equipment he both did and did not recognize.

The air tasted salty and was somehow both humid and chilled—he was glad for the thermal underwear they brought with them and wished he had it on right now.

His eyebrows bounced in reaction to a sharp whistle from G, and the music paused. Mac and Jack dropped their duffels at their feet and instinctively stood at parade rest. Mac noted that Jack had positioned himself with a shoulder slightly in front of Mac; he wasn’t sure if Jack was even aware he was doing it.

“Huddle up!” G shouted.

From various areas of the broad, open room, four people joined them. G gestured to each as they came closer.

“Zane Huron, our meteorologist and resident MCA,” G nodded to a lanky, dark-haired man who was taller than Mac and looked to still be growing into his limbs. Huron tugged on his burgeoning goatee and tossed them a mock-salute.

“Michael Kiwanuka, botanist and pretty much convinced he could survive on Mars just like Matt Damon,” G continued.

“Don’t get me started, man.” The Asian man slouched against a support beam near where they stood, arms crossed over his coveralls, and rolled his eyes. He was smaller in stature than either Mac or Jack with a weathered quality about him and looked to be oldest of the team.

“Amber Brookfield, oceanographer and best brownie maker in the biz,” G nodded toward a petite redhead with bright green eyes and freckles. She appeared to be around Mac’s age as well. Her hair was coiled in a knot on top of her head and her forearms were smeared with grease. She stepped forward with a wide, sunny Cameron Diaz-esque grin and shook both their hands.

“Also, pretty much the only one who knows how to keep Dolly working,” she added with a pointed look toward G.

“And Dolly is…?” Mac asked, though he could easily venture a guess by the smell of the motor oil on her hands.

“Our deep-submergence vehicle, or DSV,” spoke up another voice.

“ _SeaQuest_ , dude,” Jack whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

Mac looked to his left, past Jack, to see a slender kid dressed in jeans and a sweat shirt about two sizes too big for him, curling brown hair twisted up around his head as if he’d recently been caught in a wind tunnel. His fingers bounced against the sides of his legs in a repetitive rhythm.

“Amber calls it Dolly to humanize the machine, which is utterly illogical.”

“It’s not illogical,” Amber sighed, looking over at Mac and gesturing toward the kid as if to say, _see what I have to deal with_. “He sounds like he’s joking, but he’s not really,” she continued giving the kid a look edged in affection. “He just…says things sometimes.”

The kid ignored her assessment, his eyes on the newcomers, giving Mac the impression they were being both weighed and measured in a glance.

“Most DSVs are powered by traditional electric battery propulsion—as is ours—and have very limited endurance,” the kid continued, his voice modulated with limited emotional interference. “Humanizing it simply complicates matters when attempts to prolong its life beyond mechanical capacity are administered.”

“ROVs are more broadly used these days,” Mac nodded in response to the kid’s statement. The kid looked up, brown eyes alight with interest for the first time since he started speaking. “The passenger compartment and the ballast tank functionality of DSVs have been found to be problematic to maintain over extended use.”

“Exactly,” the kid nodded, crossing his arms over his chest, tucking his hands beneath his arms, and tilted his head to the side as though studying Mac.

“And this is our technical engineer, Phillip Maeson,” G tucked his thumbs into his jeans pockets and nodded toward the kid, “but we all call him Mouse.”

Jack’s eyebrows bounced up.

“Kid can get into and out of pretty much any place on this ship,” Huron spoke up. “Comes in handy since we pretty much work autonomously of the crew.”

“Kirk mentioned that,” Jack nodded. “That works okay for you?” he looked over at G.

“It…works,” G shrugged. “Not so sure about _okay_.”

“If it worked okay, we wouldn’t need to be rescued by a couple of Super Agents, now, would we?” Kiwanuka muttered.

Jack’s shoulders flexed, but before he could say anything, Mouse spoke up.

“How do you know about ROVs?” he asked, still studying Mac.

“We used them—well, a version of them,” Mac amended, “in Afghanistan. Ours didn’t go underwater.”

Kiwanuka frowned, pulling his head back. “Doing what?”

Mac looked over at him. “Bomb disposal,” he replied, eyes steady.

He’d dealt with plenty of people who’d looked at him the way the botanist was regarding him now. They assumed naiveite and ignorance based on his youthful appearance. They assumed weakness where he simply sought peace when they learned he didn’t use guns. They _assumed_ …period.

And he was man enough to admit he enjoyed the moments he was able to illuminate them.

Kiwanuka straightened up slightly. “EOD?”

Mac nodded.

“You any good?” Kiwanuka challenged, eyebrow raised.

Mac was resisting the urge to reply that he wouldn’t be standing there if he weren’t when Jack stepped forward.

“Hell man, bad ones don’t get to retire,” Jack bit out. “He’s one of the best there is. Diffused more than 100 IEDs in one day over there.”

“Jack,” Mac said softly, reaching out to tug on Jack’s sleeve, pulling him back next to him.

“All right, that’s enough,” G spoke up, hands out to the room, but his eyes on Kiwanuka. “Mac’s here at _our_ request,” he reminded them, “because none of us are EOD specialist accustomed to operating with discretion. We’re going to work with him until we take care of that sub and can get back on track. Yeah?”

For one beat, the room was silent, then Huron cleared his throat.

“You got it, Boss.”

Amber and Mouse chimed in with their agreement and Mac held himself still, waiting for the wildcard that was Kiwanuka to reply.

“Whatever you say,” he finally agreed, pushing away from the wall, and returning to the lab room he’d exited when G whistled for them.

“Great,” G clapped his hands together. “Let’s get back to work.” The team dispersed and in moments, the Beastie Boys’ _Intergalactic_ filled the empty spaces of the room once more. G looked over at Mac and Jack. “I’ll show you two where you can bunk, then we can get you some chow.”

“I’m good,” Mac waved him off. “I’d rather take a look at the diving equipment.”

G dropped his chin, eyes sweeping Mac’s frame. “You even know what time it is right now?”

At that, Mac blinked in surprise. “Not…exactly.”

“On my team, we take care of our bodies, so they don’t quit on us. That sub’s been down there since before we—well, most of us—were born,” he glanced quickly at Jack who huffed good naturedly. “It’ll wait long enough for you to get some food and rack time.”

Mac nodded, subdued. Grabbing his duffel, he fell into step with Jack, following G across the room and past the dive pool where Dolly floated calmly at the surface.

“I like this guy, Mac,” Jack said quietly next to him, his voice pitched low enough it didn’t carry up to G over the Beastie Boys.

Mac felt the side of his mouth tug up in a smile. “You just like that food is at the top of his priority list.”

Jack bounced his head once in concession. “True…you miss too many meals and you get hangry, dude.”

“I do not get _hangry_ ,” Mac shot him a sour look.

They paused as G opened one of the hatch doors.

“This’ll be your rack for while you’re here,” G said, gesturing them inside.

A set of bunk beds were fixed to the wall on the left, a desk and set of shelves to the right, and a sliding door leading to a bathroom was at the back.

“More space than we had downrange, huh, Mac?” Jack grinned, swinging his duffel up to the top bunk.

“Thanks, G,” Mac nodded at the big man.

“Get settled,” G nodded back. “I’ll let Mouse know to get you on our rotation in the mess.” He gave them a wave, then closed the door behind him.

It was interesting, Mac thought, how easily he and Jack fell into a familiar routine. Without saying anything, Mac emptied his duffel of equipment and clothes while Jack took the first turn in the shower. When Jack was done, Mac showered quickly—the water pressure and temperature weren’t exactly five-star rated—and dressed in layers to ward off the chill. When he emerged from the small bathroom, Jack had set out the comms and connected their laptop with the Phoenix satellite.

“Better?” Jack asked without looking at him.

Mac smiled, willing to admit that he had been a bit foggy. “Yeah. Hungry.”

“I’ll bet,” Jack did glance his way at that. “A stiff breeze’d knock you over.”

Mac rolled his eyes. From the moment they’d met, Jack had been worse than a mother hen when it came to his slight build. He’d proven early on that he was strong—and that Jack didn’t have to worry about him—but the man was forever watching out for him on multiple levels.

In theory, it should annoy him. But in truth, he relished the interest.

Before Jack, he’d never really had someone pay such close attention to his well-being.

“Want to see when the next meal rotation is?” Jack closed the laptop and stood up.

Mac noticed he, too, had changed and had layered in thermals as well as a dark sweater with shoulder and elbow patches. He thought of G’s comment regarding how long the sub had been on the atoll; Jack’s age over the rest of this research crew gave him a sense of strength. He’d been places and done things most of these guys had only read about in books and seen in movies.

It made Mac regard his friend with pride.

“Lead the way,” Mac nodded, and Jack opened the door and they stepped out to main room.

He could still hear the Beastie Boys, but the volume had been reduced. Scanning the far side of the room, he saw that the room Huron occupied had the door shut now. He couldn’t see Amber or Kiwanuka, but Mouse stood near the dive pool and submersible, hands at his sides, fingers tapping a rhythm against his legs, watching them approach.

“Our meal rotation is in thirty minutes,” Mouse informed them. “Examining Dolly would be the best use of that time.”

Mac smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Mouse tilted his head at that but didn’t address the colloquialism. Mac looked over at Jack.

“You go on and play,” Jack lifted his chin. “Think I’ll catch up with our boy, G, a minute.”

Mac smiled and followed Mouse over to where Dolly was docked at the side of the dive pool.

“It’s designed as a two-seater,” Mouse informed him, climbing the short ladder that ran along the side of the red hull to the glass domed hatch at the top. “One driver, one diver.”

Mac nodded, watching as Mouse opened the hatch, then sat on the edge and hung his legs inside.

“You’ll see more from up here,” Mouse informed him, his hands resting on the tops of his legs, fingers bouncing subtly.

Mac climbed up, mirroring Mouse’s position. He could see one pilot’s seat and a jump seat in the back. One oxygen mask, a spare tank, and what appeared to be a deep-dive helmet were anchored to the wall inside the compartment, and a hatch was visible in the floor.

“It’s a pressure system,” Mouse informed him. “Once the hatch is closed, the compartment is pressurized. The pilot can use oxygen when they release the hatch and allow the diver in and out of the compartment. Then they just breathe on their own while they’re waiting to pick the diver back up.”

“How many dive suits are onboard?” Mac asked, peering around the research bay of the _Zephyr_.

“Two,” Mouse replied. “One for deep dives up to 600 feet, one only to 300.”

Mac nodded. “Who all does the deep dives?”

“Nobody,” Mouse replied, tilting his head again as he studied Mac. He reminded Mac of a bird: large eyes taking everything in, head tilted in constant watchfulness. “G is the only one certified. He gathers our samples. And Amber is our only pilot. The other jobs don’t require dives. Which is why the images provided to you were taken by remote camera.”

Mac saw the camera on the platform where Mouse indicated.

“You have a decompression chamber on board?”

Mouse shook his head. “We don’t go deep enough—or haven’t. We do have pure oxygen available if someone shows signs of decompression sickness.”

MacGyver’s gaze rested on the dive suits hanging on the wall near the camera, eyes losing focus as he thought through the specifics for what he had been asked to do. Words, calculations, and formulas practically floating in the air around him, Mac considered each option and angle that would allow for Jack to go with him in the submersible—adjusting the air intake or pressurization—and how he was going to get the explosive equipment outside of the submersible along with himself in the deep pressure dive suit.

“I can see you thinking,” Mouse suddenly said.

Mac blinked, belatedly realizing he’d somewhat forgotten there was another person sitting with him. “Sorry, what?”

“I’ve been told I look like that,” Mouse continued, head tilted, and eyes narrowed in thought. “I didn’t know what it looked like until now.”

Mac smiled slightly. “What _what_ looked like?”

“The moment the inside world takes over and you climb into it until you find the information you’re looking for.”

Mac sank back, curving his spine as he relaxed in surprise. He’d never had anyone describe it quite so well before.

“Yeah…,” he said in slight wonder. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

Mouse nodded. “It happens to me. The team calls it getting lost in my head, but I’m not lost. Sometimes I don’t want to come back out, but I’m not lost.”

Mac smiled, looking down. “Yeah, well. Sometimes I do get lost.”

“But it’s your own head,” Mouse frowned, as though Mac had offered him a particularly challenging equation. “Your own thoughts. Your best friend. Your only friend. A friend you know well. And with it, you’re never alone.”

Mouse’s words sat like a weight on Mac’s heart. How he wished they were true. But there were times when Mac’s own head was his worst enemy.

Mac regarded Mouse with soft eyes. “You feel alone?”

“Most of the time, yeah,” Mouse nodded. “I don’t think like the rest of them. And they treat me like I’m a kid.”

“How old are you?” Mac asked.

“How old are _you_?” Mouse challenged.

“Twenty-seven,” Mac replied.

“I’ll be twenty-two next week,” Mouse told him, “and I have more degrees than the rest combined.”

Mac smiled. “Maybe they aren’t treating you like a kid because you don’t know enough…maybe they’re treating you that way because you’re special to them. And they want to protect you.”

“Like Dalton treats you?” Mouse asked, the head tilt back.

Mac nodded, stifling his surprise at Mouse seeing their connection so plainly. “Yeah, he protects me.”

“As though you were _his_ kid,” Mouse concluded.

Mac chuckled, “Yeah, he has a tendency to be a helicopter parent sometimes…but it’s only because he wants to keep me safe.”

“And this doesn’t bother you?”

“Well,” Mac shifted, bracing his hands on the tops of his knees, and taking a breath. “It must not because a minute ago I was trying to calculate if there was a way to fit three people into a two-person compartment and adjust the air compression or dive tanks so that he could come with me when we go down to the sub.”

Mouse narrowed his eyes, then shook his head.

“Not enough air,” they said in unison.

“You have to go alone,” Mouse declared, his words triggering a memory.

Words Jack said with heart and promise in the thick of battle as they fought to survive saving Worthy.

“None of us are ever alone as long as we don’t turn our backs on each other,” Mac repeated softly.

“Mac!”

He and Mouse turned to see Jack and G waiting for them on the platform.

“Time to grab some grub, bud,” Jack waved him down from the top of the mini sub. “I’m starving.”

Mac boosted himself out onto the ladder as Mouse shifted into position to go next.

“I enjoyed our conversation,” Mouse said as Mac neared the bottom rung. “I will consider what you said about my team.”

Mac grinned. “Good.” He headed over to Jack. “Ready?”

Jack turned with him to follow G out to the double-hatched passageway.

“What’d you tell him about his team?”

Mac lifted a shoulder. “Just offered a different way to look at something is all.”

Jack’s eyebrows bounced up. “Knowing you, it involved a bunch of numbers and formulas that only another genius could follow.”

Mac simply smiled, then trailed after Mouse and Amber as they made their way up the series of stairs to the mess hall. As they all filed in, he heard G talking behind him to Jack when they grabbed their trays and worked their way along the food line.

“I kind of figured Mac would hit it off with Mouse,” G said, low enough Mac knew the big man didn’t think his voice would carry far.

“Yeah, there aren’t many who really understand how Mac puts thoughts together,” Jack agreed.

“Seems like you do,” G replied, his tray clacking against the aluminum rails. Mac paused, lifting his tray for some mashed potatoes as he waited for Jack to reply.

“Nah, not even me,” Jack sighed, and Mac heard the rattle of the utensils as he grabbed what he needed: knife and fork only, no use for a spoon. “But that never really mattered with us ‘cause all I needed to know was how to keep him safe. I save him, he saves the world. Kinda our deal.”

Mac smiled as he accepted his tray back and moved down the line.

“I could hear him, y’know,” G said quietly as Mac grabbed a Coke and nodded to Amber as she waved him over to the table where she and Mouse were sitting.

“Hear him…do what?” Jack asked.

“With Zoe,” G clarified, and Mac froze.

His back was to them, and he was well beyond the last of the food, but he simply couldn’t move.

“Oh, damn,” Jack breathed.

“Yeah,” G replied. “I could hear how he…engaged her and reassured her and the crazy-assed ideas he was coming up with for us to use to try to keep us all safe until help arrived. I mean, some of it was…there was no way it should have worked. And then it did.”

Mac felt them closing in and knew he needed to move, he needed to step away or it would be too obvious that he was blatantly listening. He forced himself to sit at the edge of the table next to Amber and across from Mouse, but his entire being was centered on the conversation behind him. He didn’t notice Amber talking to him, or Mouse’s inquisitive gaze. He simply absorbed the bits of information G handed to Jack as they finished going through the food line.

“He did everything, man,” G was saying to Jack. “I’m telling you…he did absolutely everything he could short of flying himself out to that boat himself, to save us. When we found this sub, he was the first one I thought of ‘cause I figured…if he’d been there, on that ship? He’d have been the one to get trapped in that room instead of Zoe.”

There was a pause as the two men moved to the next table and Mac looked up as Jack passed by, a shiver in his voice as he replied, “You’re right. He would have been.”

Jack looked back at Mac and the ghosts lingering in his eyes were impossible for Mac not to see. The two men sat, and Mac looked back down at his meal, suddenly unable to even grasp and lift his fork.

“It’s a good thing to have people,” Mouse spoke up suddenly, drawing Mac’s eyes. “They’re like compasses. They keep us from getting lost in familiar places.”

Mac smiled softly at that.

“One of these days, Mouse,” Amber chuckled, “I’m going to understand what you’re talking about.”

Mouse tilted his head, his eye shifting to Amber. “No, you won’t. But that’s okay. You understand what you need to.”

Amber looked over at Mac, shaking her head, then grabbed another French fry. And Mac found with that simply transition, that acknowledgement of connection and importance of the people in their lives, he was able to take a breath, to pick up his fork, to eat.

He absorbed the debate between Amber and Mouse about the best episode of _The X-files_ and why _Firefly_ should have had more seasons to go along with the movie. The rhythm of their conversation, of Mouse’s logic, balanced him, easing his anxiety just enough he could almost forget about the conversation he’d overheard.

_Almost_.

After lunch, he and Jack were taken on a tour of the climate change research the team was doing, shown a live feed of the sub, and studied a map of the ocean floor where the sub was located. It wasn’t lost on him that Jack was patiently wearing him down, trying to tire his mind out as quickly as his body. It was something the older man had started after they’d returned from Afghanistan. Mac didn’t call attention to it, but he did appreciate it.

After the evening meal rotation, they headed directly for their bunks and Mac stretched out with relief. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.

“I hope you’re never in that room, bud,” Jack said suddenly, the emotion in his voice sifting down to land heavily on Mac in the darkness. Mac knew G’s words had haunted his partner throughout that day, the idea that Mac would be somewhere Jack couldn’t follow hitting a little too close to home for the older man.

“You’ve been there plenty of times and I was always able to get you out, but…I don’t know what I would do if….”

“I know, Jack,” he replied quietly.

“I won’t make you promise me,” Jack said, “because I know you can’t do that. Not with our jobs. Not with who you are. But…you need to know, if you ever go there—if you ever trap yourself, _sacrifice_ yourself to save someone else—you take me with you. Even if I’m not right next to you. Losing you like that? It would…it would end me.”

Mac swallowed hard, listening to the honest, raw emotion held loose and open in Jack’s voice. He wanted to say something that would reassure his friend that he wasn’t going to leave him like that again, that he was going to stay right by his side. But the truth was, he hadn’t expected to leave the first time.

And he didn’t know what the future held for them.

“I know,” Mac simply replied again, Jack’s words adding to the weight on his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** As I was looking for inspiration for the names of the Zephyr's crew, I pulled some of the names from my musical playlist. For example, Zane Huron was pulled from the group Lord Huron. Michael Kiwanuka is an amazing artist whose song, Love & Hate, is on many of my playlists. And finally, Alexander Dreymon is a German actor who portrays Uhtred of Bebbenburg in the TV series, _The Last Kingdom_ , and I have several songs from that series' soundtrack on the playlist for this story.


	3. Chapter 3

**PART THREE**

**Jack**   
_NOAA ship, Zephyr, the North Atlantic  
Sunday morning, very, very a.m._

At first, he didn’t register the sound was real.

His dreams were weighted and tangled, like walking through a room full of spider-webbed, twisted up memories of failed missions, seeing men under his command, partners, friends, _brothers_ , die in torturous ways. Each time he brushed one away, another came back until they were looping and speeding up, his brain desperate to hit the brakes.

The sound filtered into his dreams; a warm shadow folded into the landscape of sand that anchored him in sleep. It repeated, an icy hand pressed over his heart, a panicked, desperate gasp for breath hauling him into the waking world with a vengeance, the room around him so dark he had to touch his face to feel himself blink. It took him a moment to remember where he was, and in that moment, the sound finally registered.

It was a whimper.

_Mac_.

The layout of the room immediately filtered into Jack’s memory and he reached over his head to the control switch that lit up the glowing recessed lights in the ceiling above his bunk. He sat up, legs hanging down off the top bunk, and breathed shallowly, listening to see if the ambient glow would wake Mac up.

The whimper turned into a groan that sounded as though it had fought a battle to reach the surface. Jack slid from the top bunk, his bare feet hitting the cold steel floor. He could feel the vibration of the ship up through his ankles and to his knees. Glancing at his watch he saw that it was barely three in the morning—they’d only been asleep for a few hours.

“Mac,” he called softly, peering down into the bottom bunk. The younger agent was on his back, one leg kicked out from the blanket, his long-sleeved T-shirt twisted around his middle. “Hey, bud.”

Sweat plastered Mac’s blond hair against his forehead, his brows pulled low in a fierce frown. Jack could hear his teeth grinding together as a muscle along his jawline flexed.

“You’re gonna mess up your pretty smile, you keep doing that,” he said softly, easing down on the bunk, his hip at Mac’s waist. “C’mon, kid. Wake up for me.”

He rested a hand on Mac’s shoulder, feeling the sweat of fear through the cotton of his shirt. At his touch Mac stilled, breath held, muscles taut. Jack didn’t move, didn’t release his hand.

“It’s okay, Mac.”

And then, as if he were surfacing from beneath a deep pool, Mac opened his eyes, taking a huge breath, his neck arching slightly as though to fill his lungs even more. Jack tightened his grip a bit, providing an anchor as Mac’s blue eyes darted frantically around the bunk, sleep having stolen his orientation just as it had Jack’s.

“Where…?” Mac started, until his eyes hit Jack.

“Easy,” Jack coached. “Steady your breathing.”

Mac kept his eyes on Jack, his fingers curled into the sheets twisted around his waist, tightening into fists. He exhaled shakily, then drew in breath through his nose, blowing it out slowly through lips pressed almost flat.

“Atta boy,” Jack nodded, easing up his grip. “Feel like sitting up?”

Mac nodded and Jack slid toward the foot of the bed to make room so Mac could sit up and swing his legs over the edge without hitting his head on the bunk above. He leaned over, resting his elbows on his knees, shoving his hands into his messy hair, shoulders shifting as he worked to keep his breath from picking up speed once more.

“Shit,” he breathed.

“Want some water?”

“’m okay,” Mac mumbled. “Sorry, man.”

“Hey, don’t sweat it,” Jack waved him off. “Been there, bud.”

Mac nodded into his hands but didn’t lift his head.

“Want to talk about it?”

Mac shook his head.

Jack pursed his lips, studying Mac’s profile—the muscle along his jaw flexing, the line of sweat tracing a pattern to his neck. He knew the kid wasn’t getting back to sleep if he didn’t let this go.

“Guessing it was about Zoe.”

Mac flinched and Jack sat forward.

“Guessing it was one you’ve had before.”

Mac pushed his fingers through his tangled hair, then pressed to his feet, arching away from the edge of the bunk, and moved to the bathroom. Jack heard the water pump in the small sink turn on, then after a moment, Mac emerged, the front of this shirt splashed wet, his face rubbed red. He leaned against the desk on the other side of the small room.

“Guessing it’s you working through all the things you could have done differently,” Jack concluded.

“’m okay, Jack,” Mac’s voice was sleep rough. He cleared his throat, then crossed his arms over his chest, staring down at his bare feet.

“Well, if that were true, we’d both still be sawing logs, so…,” Jack lifted his eyebrows. “How ‘bout you try that one more time?”

“I just…,” Mac’s voice trembled, and Jack watched as his need to be _okay_ co-existed with the faint awareness that he was close to spectacularly unraveling right in front of him. “I missed something. I know it. There’s something else I could have done.”

“What _did_ you do?” Jack asked, careful to not move and distract Mac from opening up.

“They had a generator problem,” Mac sighed, “which turned out to actually be a fuel pump problem. So, I walked her through how to make a peristaltic pump to feed fuel to the generator.”

“Using what? Tin cans and pieces of a garden hose?” Jack teased.

Mac offered a small smile. “Well, I started with the wheels from her carry-on suitcase.”

“Of course, you did.”

“I had to, y’know, use things she had available to her on the ship.”

“Sure. _Apollo 13_ -style.”

Mac exhaled shakily. “Only…it wasn’t enough.”

“It was enough to save 31 people.”

Mac shook his head. “It wasn’t enough.”

Jack hooked his hands on the underside of his bunk and pulled himself to his feet so that he was squarely across from Mac. “Look, kid. I know you heard G talking in the mess earlier. You know he thinks you did everything you could.”

Mac nodded. “I know. I mean…,” he looked up at Jack and the older man was struck by the pain in his bright blue eyes. “It’s not like we haven’t lost people. Jill was just…,” Mac lifted his shoulders helplessly, “weeks ago.”

Jack nodded solemnly.

“So why can’t I let _this_ go?”

Jack sighed, mirroring Mac’s posture. “Bud, I hate to tell you this…, but you don’t let _anything_ go.”

Mac drew his head back, clearly puzzled.

“You…store it away. Press it deep into a box. So, you can move forward, continue on.” Jack dropped his chin, his eyes up and on Mac’s. “But you don’t let it go. It’s just…waiting there for you. For nights like this.”

Mac dragged a hand down his face. “Shitty coping mechanism, you ask me.”

“I won’t argue with you,” Jack chuffed, relieved to see Mac steadying, coming back to himself.

Mac rolled his neck. “I thought I was…y’know. Better than this.”

Jack pressed his lips flat in a sad frown. “Pretending you’re not hurt ain’t the same as healing.”

Mac frowned, his eyes on the middle distance. Jack wasn’t sure he wanted to know what the kid was seeing in that moment.

“Look, we got a mission in the morning—and it’s not something we’ve ever done before,” Jack sighed. “We need to grab a few more hours of shut-eye. You think you can?”

Mac lifted a shoulder. “I can try.”

Jack watched him for a moment. “You’re never going to believe you did what you could just because someone else says it.”

Mac blinked at him, surprised.

“Just like we think there’s something else we could have done for Jill, or for the guys we lost downrange,” Jack continued. “It’s not something someone else can tell you to forgive yourself for and have you just… _do it_. It’s something you have to know. Here,” he pressed two fingers on Mac’s sternum. “And if you’re not ready…, bud, you’re just not ready. That kind of shit, you just have to process.”

Mac rolled his neck once more, twisting the muscles there so hard Jack winced. It looked as though he was trying to wring the pain away.

“Guess it does help to know I’m not alone,” he murmured, his deep voice a low, rough brush of sound.

“Hell no, you’re not alone,” Jack stepped forward, resting a hand on Mac’s shoulder once more. “I told you before and I’ll say it again: you’ll always have me.” He moved his hand to the back of Mac’s neck and gripped. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Mac nodded and Jack felt him lean a bit into his touch.

“Want to try to grab a couple more hours before we go swimming?”

Mac nodded again, shuffling to his bunk, and climbing beneath the blankets. Jack crawled up the ladder to his top bunk, but just as he reached for the lights, Mac’s voice stopped him.

“Can we…,” he paused, and Jack heard him pull in a breath. “Can we keep them on?”

Jack dropped his hand. “Sure, Hoss. Whatever you need.”

He didn’t remember falling back to sleep; when the alarm on his watch went off, he jerked aware, rubbing at his eyes blearily. The lack of windows in their room had a disorienting effect. He stared at the face of his watch for nearly a full minute before he genuinely believed that it was six in the morning.

“Mac!” he called. “Rise and shine!”

He swung out of the bunk and dropped to the ground, surprised to find Mac’s bunk empty. He glanced to the bathroom and saw that it, too, was empty. Frowning, he dressed quickly in layers, tugging on his boots as he brushed his teeth, then exited to the main area. It didn’t surprise him to find Mac sitting cross-legged on the floor across from Mouse, one of the deep dive suits between them.

Mouse’s back was to him and Jack could see the concentration on Mac’s face as they bent low over the air intake valve, his Swiss Army Knife in his hand. Watching Mac work, Jack felt a swift gut kick at the memory of the months without Mac around.

He’d promised Mac he’d be there for him, watch out for him. Watch over him. But when Mac walked out of their lives—left the country entirely—he’d felt…adrift. Purposeless. And it had led him to make some rather unwise choices.

But Mac was his own person.

Who was _Jack_ without that person in his life? Was there anything left of the soldier, the spy? The man who’d first met Worthy, who’d led men into battle?

What had he become if he wasn’t whole without a certain blond genius by his side?

“Hey, Jack!”

Mac’s voice snapped his attention back center. He smiled back at Mac’s sunny grin and headed over to him.

“What are you two up to?”

Mac turned the dive suit over to show him the front where the breathing apparatus connected. As Mac explained how he and Mouse had been working to improve the intake flow so that he’d get more oxygen while down at the sub, combating the increased nitrogen from the natural pressure of the ocean and helping to stave off decompression sickness, Jack simply watched Mac’s hands move, listened to the excited ebb and flow of his voice.

He thought for a while there, things were broken between them.

Mac finding his father, realizing the depth of his betrayal, had wounded something in the kid—something deep enough even Jack’s friendship couldn’t reach. But when Mac showed up to pull him out of Russia, and when he followed him to save Worthy, Jack realized he’d been wrong.

They weren’t broken. They never had been. They were just shifting, adjusting, rebuilding.

Theirs was a bond too strong to break. It could be bruised, battered even. But the day Mac put his own life in danger to save Jack from that pressure-plated IED in a burned-out house in the middle of a crumbling city in a country on the other side of the world cemented a Wookie Life Debt that Jack meant to honor.

With his life, if necessary.

“That’s great, man,” Jack nodded when Mac sat back, his explanation complete. He smiled at the pleased grin on Mac’s face.

“I estimate you absorbed roughly five percent of the information he just shared with you,” Mouse spoke up, dark eyes scanning Jack’s face as if he were mentally cataloging each shift in expression.

Jack grinned. He liked this kid. Like their very own Sheldon Cooper.

“Doesn’t matter if I absorbed it,” Jack rested his hands on his hips as Mac folded his Swiss Army Knife back together and pushed to his feet, “as long as he understands it, I’m good.”

Mouse looked up at Mac, who nodded down at him.

“You trust him that implicitly?” Mouse asked Jack.

“I trust him with my life,” Jack replied immediately, grinning at Mac. “He hasn’t let me down yet.”

Mouse shrugged, then clambered to his feet. “Statistically speaking, though, the odds of that statement being untrue in your lifetime—”

“Ah!” Jack broke in, a hand up. “Never tell me the odds.”

Mouse frowned, tilting his head inquisitively. “You’re applying a quote from _Star Wars_ to this situation?”

“He takes _Star Wars_ very seriously,” Mac said solemnly. “It’s best to just go with it.”

Jack watched with suppressed amusement as Mouse nodded, clearly puzzled but willing to play along. With another head tilt, Mouse gathered the dive suit and headed to the locker to store it until later.

“You get any more sleep?” Jack asked, studying Mac, looking for the shadows that always haunted his eyes after a nightmare.

He hoped Mac would never outgrow the innocence that held sway in his gaze—no matter what he’d seen in life, no matter how deep those shadows chased him into sleep, there was always light in his blue eyes. Hope. A promise to try, that there was always another way.

Jack depended on that light; it was much too dark in his life without it.

“A little,” Mac lifted a shoulder, covering the lie with diversion. “Trying to make sure we’re ready for today.”

“We’re ready, bud,” Jack clapped a hand on his shoulder.

Mac offered him a wry smile. “You hungry?”

“Dude, I’m _always_ hungry,” he replied.

“It’s our rotation in a few mins,” Mac said. “We could head down early.”

Jack nodded, gesturing ahead of him. Mac led the way toward the hatch.

“What’s off about this place?” Jack frowned, looking back over his shoulder at the empty room, then twisted around to peer through the glass into the labs.

“No music,” Mac stated as he turned the wheel of the hatch. Jack snapped his fingers and pointed at Mac in agreement.

“That’s ‘cause Huron’s not up yet.” G’s voice filtered toward them on a yawn, shuffling forward from one of the lab rooms, a red flannel shirt flapping loose over his white thermals and jeans, blond tufts of hair askew. “Which is good for the rest of us.”

He followed Mac and Jack through the hatch, waiting with them as the light changed from red to green.

“He ever listen to anything other than Beastie Boys?” Jack asked.

Grinding the heel of his hand into one eye, G sleepily shook his head. “It’s the Boys or nothing,” he said rolling his shoulders as he fought the pull of sleep. “And believe me when it’s nothing?” He raised his eyebrows, “hide.”

Mac chuckled as they headed to the mess hall, pausing in the doorway as he saw a few of the ship’s crew were still finishing up their meals. Jack gently prodded him forward. As far as he was concerned, the events of their day were the most important thing happening on the ship. Anyone and anything else could just take a back seat.

Mac grabbed a tray and started down the line.

Jack looked over as he felt someone approaching. He lifted his chin in greeting as Ethan Roberts, the Second Mate and Navigator—as he’d introduced himself—stepped forward and rested a too-familiar hand on Jack’s shoulder.

“You boys all settled in?” he asked, the friendly words colored with a cold edge that had Jack wanting to shrug his hand off.

Mac looked over and nodded politely. “Yes, Sir,” he replied. “Crew’s taking good care of us.”

“Good! That means you can take good care of whatever they have you doing, and we can get on with our jobs, yeah?”

Jack shifted abruptly as though reaching for a coffee cup and loosened the man’s hand from his shoulder. “That’s the plan.”

Roberts moved away, nodding once toward the flannel-clad research lead. “G.”

“Roberts.” G nodded back, watching him leave, then grabbing a mug and moving to the coffee station.

Jack felt the frown pulling his brows low. Mac glanced back at him as he allowed his plate to be piled with eggs.

“What?”

Jack shook his head. “Nothing.”

Mac turned, facing him. “That isn’t your ‘nothing’ face.”

“Ain’t that usually my line?” Jack tried to smooth out his expression, but Mac was watching him too closely. The kid had always been able to see through his shields—as if they were transparent only to him.

Mac lifted a shoulder and grabbed a bottle of orange juice before pivoting toward a table. “This is an equal opportunity partnership,” he teased, “and it’s a good line.”

They sat across from each other and Jack hunched over his tray for a moment, eyes downcast. “Okay, fine. There’s something hinky about that guy, Roberts.”

He waited for Mac to scoff, or kick him under the table, but he was silent. Jack lifted his gaze to Mac’s face and saw the kid was staring toward the doorway. There was a sort of _knowing_ in Mac’s expression—but confusion as well. As if he accepted a truth but wasn’t certain of the source.

When it came to facts and science, Mac never doubted himself. But when it came to people….

Mac had always gotten a bit lost when it came to navigating people.

_Jack_ knew people.

Knew what they were each capable of—including himself. He knew the taste of hate and the texture of wickedness. He knew what it was to want to kill. To desire death. He knew the dark on the flipside of light better than almost anyone.

Including the kid in front of him. _E_ _specially_ the kid in front of him. And if Jack could do anything about it, he would keep that darkness away from Mac forever. He’d seen what loss and betrayal—the kind of betrayal Mac had felt by his own father—did to people. How it made them hard. Made them mean. And he wouldn’t let that to happen to Mac.

“I think the Captain might agree with you,” Mac said finally. “Did you see the way he looked at Roberts when we met them yesterday?”

Jack nodded, leaning forward further so that his voice reached only Mac. “Yes! Almost like we walked in on the tail-end of a fight.”

Mac nodded, then his eyes dropped to meet Jack’s. “It’s not the same as with Kiwanuka, though,” he said.

Jack shook his head. “Naw, that’s just straight up jealousy, there,” he said, digging into his eggs. “Roberts, that’s….”

“Hinky,” Mac filled in, cracking open his juice bottle.

Jack pointed at him with a piece of bacon. “Exactly.”

“We’ll keep an eye on him,” Mac declared, expression as serious as Jack had seen it.

G dropped down beside them with an expressive sigh. “There is literally nothing better in the world than coffee,” he said, lifting his mug and clinking it against Jack’s.

That brightened Mac’s expression and they finished breakfast talking about G’s Viking ancestors and how the big blond had been destined to have a career on the water. When they returned to the research section of the ship, the others were waiting for them, Huron providing the soundtrack of their day. Mac disappeared for a moment to get changed into his thermals so that he could pull on the tight-fitting dive suit and G pulled Jack aside.

“Here’s the deal,” G said, crossing one arm over his broad chest and pulling at the multi-colored beads in his beard with the other. “I’m the only certified depth diver on the crew. So, what _should_ happen is that Amber—our driver—heads below with Mac as the diver and I suit up in case they get in trouble, I can head down to help.”

Jack was shaking his head before G had finished speaking. He could feel his pulse at the base of his throat. Mac down there without him was bad enough. Having to sit by and just…wait? No way was he going to—

“However,” G held up his hand as Jack opened his mouth to voice his protest. “I knew the minute I met you both that what _should_ happen and what _would_ happen were two very different realities,” G went on, “so while the crew is walking Mac through the location of the sub, you’re gonna get a crash course on deep-dive suits.”

Jack closed his mouth with a click and lifted his chin. “I’m glad we got that cleared up,” he said.

He glanced over as Mac emerged from their room, dressed in his dark thermals, tear-away Adidas athletic pants and his MIT t-shirt. With his blond hair a little on the long side and his eyes on the phone in his hand, he looked more like the college kid he never really got a chance to be than a war-hardened secret agent. Mac glanced up as he drew closer and the smile he tossed Jack’s way kicked at something in Jack’s gut.

He suddenly did _not_ want Mac on this mission. He didn’t want him anywhere near that sub. He didn’t want him on this ship.

“You ready?” Jack asked, hiding his momentary panic with a lift of his chin.

He’d been here before, sending kids off to battle, knowing the likelihood of them not coming back was high. But Mac was different than just any kid under his command. He was his partner, his best friend, his anchor.

Mac was _his_.

“Yep!” Mac replied, eyes almost electric-blue with anticipation. Jack could see the mix of fear and excitement in the younger man’s expression. “Amber’s going to take me through the specs now.”

Jack nodded. “’Bout to get myself a diving suit lesson.”

Mac held up a fist and Jack bounced his knuckles, pressing his lips closed and trapping any words of doubt inside the cage around his heart. He didn’t need to set the kid off-balance now. Not when he was about to try something he’d never done before…something that could so easily get him killed.

As Mac walked away Jack kept his eyes on the floor, counting his breaths as he pulled air in slowly through his nose. He felt G standing silently nearby, waiting for him. He felt the thrum of the ship through the soles of his boots. He felt the backbeat of _No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn_ slipping outward from Huron’s lab.

His heart finally slowed, resuming its normal rhythm and he looked up at G. The big blond raised his eyebrows in a silent question.

“I’m good,” Jack nodded. “Let’s do this thing.”

As it turned out, it wasn’t as hard as he’d thought it would be to learn the valves and levers on the deep-dive suit. It was eerily like learning the gauges and switches in a helicopter. The hardest thing, really, was going to be remembering to regulate his breathing.

“Think…Darth Vader,” G offered. “Like how he had that really measured…in and out,” the big man illustrated with a _hiss-blow_ sound, “every few seconds, no matter what he was doing. Tie Fighter, lightsaber duel, it’s all the same breathing pattern.”

Jack grinned. “Yeah, all right,” he nodded “I’m picking up what you’re putting down.”

After G instructed how to put the suit on, they moved over to where Amber and Huron had the specs for the sub rolled out on an overlay of the ocean floor. Mac was standing to the side, his eyes on the maps as though trying to memorize every hill and valley, one arm crossed over his middle, the other hand tugging gently at his bottom lip. Jack dug into the thigh pocket of his cargo pants and pulled out two paperclips, handing them over without a word.

Eyes still on the maps, Mac took them and without missing a beat, began to twist the pliable metal in his long fingers. Jack caught the bemused grin Huron shot their way.

“So, the sub is here,” Mac poked one finger at a rise several miles below the southernmost point of Greenland.

“And we’re directly over it,” Amber nodded.

Jack whistled through flat lips. “Y’know, I didn’t think about it until now, but having a Russian sub this close to the States in ’86 would have been….”

“Could’ve meant war,” Kiwanuka agreed from the doorway. Jack glanced up to see the botanist slouched with one arm against the doorframe, his hip cocked to the side. He looked as though he’d just rolled out of bed. “You and I are probably the only ones who actually remember the ‘80’s round here.”

“Hey,” Huron spoke up. “I remember the ‘80’s.”

“Being _born_ in the ‘80’s and _remembering_ the ‘80’s are two different things, man,” Kiwanuka teased, bumping his lanky teammate with his elbow as he crossed into the room and took up position across from Mac.

“So, here’s what I’m thinking,” Mac said, having apparently missed the whole exchange, his focus so intent on the mission at hand. “I go in and extract the…,” he glanced up at Jack, then over at Amber, “uranium, and then attach a timed explosive before dropping it here,” he pointed to a trench on the map. “Weighted, it should reach a safe depth before detonating, minimizing the blast bubble.”

“Great,” Kiwanuka muttered. “We’re here to study climate change effects but, sure, let’s go ahead and detonate a bunch of uranium beneath the surface of the ocean like it’s no big deal.”

“You prefer to bring it to the surface?” Huron challenged.

“At least we could contain it and not further damage this underwater environment,” Kiwanuka shot back.

“Containing the uranium on the surface after thirty years underwater is a very bad idea,” Mac replied, his brows pulled close over the bridge of his nose.

Jack recognized that glint in his partner’s eyes. He was about to lay some truth down.

“Oh? And why is that, Boy Wonder?”

Jack lifted an eyebrow and exchanged a look with Mac, mouthing _Boy Wonder_? Mac shook his head, opening his mouth to reply.

“Because,” Mouse’s voice floated down to them from the ceiling, the interruption closing Mac’s mouth in surprise. All eyes rotated upwards and Jack saw the tangled mess of brown hair hanging down from the tiles above them. “Uranium eventually decays to radium. Radium decays to release a radioactive gas called radon. And radon is a very, very bad thing.”

“Mouse, you little spy, get down from there,” Amber sighed expressively, giving the impression that it wasn’t the first time since the start of their deployment she’d found their young genius in impossible places.

“Fine,” Kiwanuka shrugged, climbing on top of a chair, and reaching for Mouse as the technical engineer started to slide his upper body out through the opening in the ceiling tiles. “Radon is bad. But isn’t _blowing up_ nuclear matter worse?”

Jack looked over at Mac, watching as his eyes tracked the way Kiwanuka collected Mouse toward him and then protected the younger man’s head as he lowered him to the ground before dismounting the chair. He could detect the exact moment Mac decided to give Kiwanuka a chance—writing his bitterness off as an alpha male protecting his territory and not simply as someone willfully distrusting Mac’s advice.

Mac had dealt with plenty alpha male types in the military; he knew how to diffuse that particular situation.

“Actually, it’s a lot safer,” Mac explained. “Blast bubbles from deep nuclear explosions basically become simply hot water in about six seconds and leave no regular bubbles to float up to the surface. That’s a lot faster than bubbles from typical explosions.”

“Meaning—”

“Meaning that there is a drastic loss of energy between cycles caused by the extreme force of the nuclear explosion pushing the bubble wall outward faster than the speed of sound in saltwater,” Mouse spoke up from where he now stood next to Kiwanuka, leaning one hip against the map table and drumming his fingers in the same rhythmic pattern Jack had noticed him bouncing against his legs. “And despite being in direct contact with a nuclear explosion, the water of the expanding bubble wall does not boil because the oscillating blast bubble contains only about forty percent of the energy it had in the previous cycle.”

Jack blinked, then looked over at Mac, absolutely clueless.

“Exactly,” Mac grinned at Mouse. “Bottom line, we make the world safe by exploding it underwater and we keep the _Zephyr_ safe by dropping it deep so there isn’t corresponding water displacement.”

“Coulda just said so,” Kiwanuka muttered, crossing his arms.

Mouse looked confused. “I thought I just did.”

“Okay, so,” Amber took a breath, shaking her head a bit as she waded through the insane logic floating around them like word clouds. “We set a timer and drop it…if it’s going to go off deep enough to keep us safe, how will we know when the job is done?”

“Hydrophones,” Mac and Huron replied in unison.

Mac smiled and gestured to the meteorologist.

“Hydroacoustic readings can typically be used to determine if a nuclear detonation has occurred underwater,” Huron explained, dropping his hands to his hips, and rolling his head. Jack almost winced at the popcorn crackle of the man’s long neck. “But we’ll use hydrophones to monitor the change in water pressure via sound waves.”

“I knew there was a reason I put up with all that racket you call music,” G grinned from the doorway.

Huron lifted a finger without turning to face his boss. “Do not besmirch the brilliance of the Boys,” he declared.

“Okay, Mac,” Amber capped her pen and dropped it on top of the map. “You got what you need?”

Mac was chewing his bottom lip, eyes on the map, fingers twisting the paperclips. “Almost,” he said. “I just need Jack for a few things, then we can head out.”

G clapped his hands together. “Let’s get this show on the road, people!”

Jack watched as Mac dropped his paperclip art on top of the map. A submarine. At least it wasn’t a mushroom cloud. He wondered if Mac realized how much his figures exposed his subconscious.

Following the younger man out of the lab room and toward their bunk, Jack felt himself downshift to battle mode.

His senses turned up to eleven, reaching out to all points around him until he imagined he could hear Mac’s heart beating. The hairs along his arms and the back of his neck stood on end. The room seemed brighter; the air lighter. It was a high he usually experienced with a weapon in hand as he was about to head outside the wire, but in this case, he’d give the ocean props for creating a scary-assed playing field.

“We can use the comms that Riley gave us, right?” Mac asked the minute they hit their room.

Jack nodded, popping open the black box as Mac went for his duffle at the foot of his bunk. “I’ll pass them out to the others, too,” he said, inserting his into his left ear. “Here you go, Hoss.”

Mac straightened, took his and inserted it into his ear.

“Open channel to everyone,” Jack reminded him.

Mac nodded, then turned back to his bag. “I rigged up this timer this morning,” he said, turning to face Jack with a contraption the size of a softball in his hand. “Should have enough C4, just need to figure out a weight….”

There was something in his voice, a subtle tremor, an edge that Jack had rarely heard. He stepped forward, resting a hand on Mac’s shoulder and felt the younger man flinch with the contact.

“Thinking maybe I could find something here that would add ballast to the—”

“Hey,” Jack broke into Mac’s somewhat panicky rambling.

Mac stopped talking and drew in a shuddering breath, dragging his eyes from the timer and C4 in his hand to meet Jack’s steady gaze. For a split second, Jack saw the youth in Mac’s eyes—fear and uncertainty exposed in a brief glimpse of raw vulnerability—but just as quickly, the wall came down and a steel determination replaced it. Jack slid his hand from Mac’s shoulder to the back of his neck and squeezed the tense muscles there.

“You got this, kid.”

Mac nodded once, but there was still a tremor in his breathing.

“There is no one—and I mean _no one_ —I would trust more than you with what we’re about to do,” Jack told him. “And that’s not because we don’t have much of a choice, either.”

Mac laughed shakily at that, dropping his eyes from Jack’s face.

“Yeah, okay,” he said softly.

“Naw, not just ‘okay’,” Jack shook his head, tightening his grip slightly. “I believe in you, Mac. One hundred percent. And you gotta trust me, you know why?”

Mac looked back up at him, one eyebrow raised.

Jack leaned in a bit closer, whispering, “Because I’m Batman.”

Mac’s grin was wide and immediate, his body relaxing enough under Jack’s grip that the older man released him to step back, shaking his head.

“What? Hey, I mean, if you’re Boy Wonder, there’s only one thing I _can_ be, right?” Jack spread his arms wide, feeling the tension slip out of the room with Mac’s laugh.

“I _knew_ you were going to bring that up,” Mac rolled his eyes, shifting the timer from one hand to the other and heading toward the door.

“Only makes sense,” Jack shrugged, following Mac out toward the submersible.

He could tell by Mac’s stride that the kid had his mojo back; whatever doubts he had minutes ago were boxed up once more. With the help of the research team, they both changed into the dive suits, clad in only their thermals beneath the layered silicon. As Mac checked the gauges on the breathing apparatus he and Mouse had adjusted, Jack passed out the comms to the rest of the team, explaining the range and use.

Amber climbed into Dolly and started the pre-dive check list. Mac bumped fists with Jack, then grabbed his helmet and started up the ladder.

“Hey,” Jack called just before Mac swung his legs inside the mini-sub’s hatch. Mac paused, looking back down at Jack. “I’ll be right here, okay?”

Mac nodded, offering him a small smile, then dropped out of sight into the mini sub. The hatch closed and locked, and Mouse and Huron detached the cables from the sides of the dive pool. As the mini sub began to descend, Jack focused on his breathing once more.

_In on a four count, hold for a four count, exhale on a four count._

Jack heard a crackle in his left ear.

“Mac?”

_“I read you,”_ Mac replied.

_“Me too,”_ Amber chimed in.

Jack nodded with a smile, looking over at G, who answered with a thumbs up.

“Okay, Mac,” G spoke up. “We’ll walk you through this step by step, but for now just sit back, and enjoy the ride.”

“Yeah, think of it like SeaWorld, only…like, really intense,” Kiwanuka chimed in from where he stood in the lab next to Huron.

_“I’ll keep that in mind,”_ Mac said, a smile in his voice.

Mouse sat down next to Jack. “As long as he doesn’t focus on the literal tons of pressure being applied to the worn-out seams on that submersible he should be just fine,” he said to Jack, in what was a clear attempt at offering reassurance.

_“Um,”_ Amber’s voice slid up to them. _“Maybe it’s okay if Mouse doesn’t have a comm?”_

Mouse frowned. Jack rested a hand on the smaller man’s shoulder.

“It’s okay, kid,” Jack reassured him. “Mac knew what you meant.”

Mouse nodded but removed his earpiece and handed it to Jack before standing up and moving over to a workbench on the other side of the room. Jack sighed, and handed the comm up to G. He couldn’t worry about that young genius.

He had his own to focus on.


	4. Chapter 4

**PART FOUR**

**Mac**   
_Beneath the Zephyr, in the North Atlantic  
Sunday afternoon_

“What are you doing back there?” Amber’s voice floated back to him, echoing off the curved glass of the submersible’s front.

Mac shot a look over his shoulder at her, then resumed his work. “Rigging up a weighted ballast for the charge,” he replied. “Need to figure out how to have it ready, without having to haul it through the sub.”

Before Amber could answer, a voice came to him through the comms.

_“Mouse suggests using the bio box from the slurp gun,”_ Kiwanuka stated. _“Uh, he says weight it with the—”_

“Sandbag ballasts,” Mac finished with a nod. “Perfect.” He moved to where the slurp gun—used to vacuum up samples from the sea floor and ocean currents and store in a hard-plastic bio box to keep the samples cool and safe—was fastened against the wall.

“Did you actually take his comm away?” Amber asked her teammate.

_“He removed it himself,”_ Kiwanuka exclaimed. _“Still seemed to know what Mac was going to need, though.”_

Mac smiled slightly hearing the stubborn botanist use his actual name.

“We’re about eight minutes from touch-down,” Amber reported. She rotated to look back at Mac. “When we get to zero station, I’ll circle around to the hole in the sub and hover until you’re done. Setting down might stir up too much silt and sand—and I don’t want to accidentally, y’know, knock the damn thing off the cliff.”

“Yeah, that would be bad,” Mac nodded, pulling on his gloves, and readying the helmet and breather.

_“You good, Hoss?”_ Jack’s voice filtered through to Mac and he glanced over at Amber, hesitant to answer. “ _And remember, this is a party line and the neighbors got itchy trigger fingers_.”

“Oh, boy,” Amber muttered, a grin clear in her voice.

“I’m good,” Mac replied. It wasn’t _entirely_ a lie. He was ready, he knew his job. “Guess I always do better when there’s not so much time to prep.”

_“Yeah, all things being equal—”_

_“You’d rather be in Philadelphia?”_ Kiwanuka chimed in.

Mac grinned.

“Welcome to the party, pal,” Amber chuckled.

_“Looks like we got the right crew with us, Mac,”_ Jack said, and Mac could picture the familiar grin folding the lines in his face.

“Yippee-ki-yay,” Mac agreed.

“Okay, Mac,” Amber called. “Helmet on. I’m going on autopilot to get you secured and then you’re on your own, copy?”

“Good copy,” Mac nodded.

He felt the mini sub shift slightly as Amber set the autopilot and looked over at the window in front of her controls. The lights from the sub reflected off particles of plankton and the dark of the ocean. The built-in compass in his brain oriented him to where they’d descended and the location of the sub. When he exited the submersible, he should be right by the nose of the wreck.

Amber helped him secure his helmet and breather.

“You read me?” she asked, making eye contact through the mask.

He nodded and gave her a thumbs up. “Copy.”

_“How ‘bout me?”_ Jack chimed in, and Mac nodded again, mostly to alert Amber that he heard what she heard.

“I read you, Jack.”

_“Atta boy,”_ Jack replied. _“You got this, kid.”_

Mac turned to the airlock, dragging the bio box and C4 softball behind him as he reached for the hatch. “Just like Beggar’s Canyon back home,” he replied.

_“Okay,_ now _you’re speaking my language,”_ he heard Huron say.

He waited until Amber was positioned back in her pilot’s seat, then moved into the airlock, closing the door behind him, and opening the hatch that led to the open ocean, the hatch closing automatically behind him. For a moment as he dropped into the water, he felt an instinctive urge to hold his breath, the water closing over him quickly.

_“Just one easy breath, kid,”_ Jack was suddenly saying in his ear, somehow knowing his instincts even separated as they were. _“Nothing to it.”_

Mac took a slow breath, his body adjusting to the buoyancy of his suit and the weight of the bio box. He saw the sub directly in front of him.

_“Mac?”_

“I’m good,” he reassured his partner. “I see the sub.”

_“Big sucker, huh?”_ Jack’s voice felt close, as if the man were just at his elbow _. “Akula’s were made to be stealthy, but they’re still big mothers.”_

“Yeah, it’s…big,” Mac swam along the body of the broken sub, using the light affixed to his helmet to scan for the opening. He could see it about seven feet in front of him. “Jack?”

_“I’m here, bud.”_

He swallowed hard, a strange, almost irrational fear suddenly gripping him. “What about…I mean, do I need to worry about…bodies?”

A part of his mind knew the others could hear him, but in that moment he didn’t care. He’d seen enough bodies in war zones to know what to expect with an IED or RPG hit, but underwater…62 souls on board. He just needed to know what to expect.

_“It’s been thirty years, man,”_ Jack reassured him. _“Anyone on board is part of the circle of life by now.”_

“Yeah, you’re right,” Mac found himself nodding.

He’d reached the blast hole—it was roughly twelve feet across, the edges of the sub’s hull curled inward from the impact, pale, almost translucent, crab-like creatures crawling along the broken skin of the sub and swimming into the opening. Mac took a slow breath, focusing on the formula of oxygen to nitrogen he and Mouse had rigged up for his body to easily adjust, assessing the weight ratio of the bio box he was hauling along in his wake to the uranium cannister he was looking for…thinking about everything _except_ having to swim into the hole and search the wreckage of that sub.

He set the bio box on the edge of the opening.

“I’ve reached the blast hole,” he reported. “This thing went down fast, Jack, hole this size.”

_“Yeah, those guys never knew what hit ‘em,”_ Jack agreed.

“Leaving the explosive and ballast outside,” he reported, “heading in.”

_“Slow is smooth and smooth is fast,”_ Jack reminded him.

“Roger that,” Mac replied, gripping the least-jagged edge of the opening, and lowering his head through to shine the light around.

It was a mess. The blast had hit mid-ship, turning stairs into a gnarled mess of metal, and bulk heads into so much twisted paper. Pulling his legs inside, he tried to mentally orient himself as to which direction he needed to head, standing perfectly still for a moment as his head lamp shone in one direction, trying to ignore the imagined pressure of the darkness behind.

_“You’re heading aft,”_ Huron said suddenly, startling Mac. _“The weapons room and nuclear conversion are near the stern.”_

“Copy,” Mac replied, finding himself trying to keep his eyes as wide as possible.

It was disorienting and disconcerting to only be able to see directly in front of himself. His head lamp struggled to penetrate the complete absence of light. It seemed to have greater weight—which he knew was empirically impossible, but sometimes irrational fear surpassed scientific reality in the dark. He tried to block out that part of his mind, the part that wanted to scream in terror as he made his way through a space no other living person had occupied during his entire lifetime.

The sub had been resting on the edge of the underwater ridge for longer than he had been alive, and the sea had made itself at home inside. As he moved forward, heading toward the weapons room, Mac found himself stepping gingerly around rusty tentacles of underwater bacteria that clung to the hull and rails.

Remains of uniforms snagged against the metal told Mac the story of the men who had died there. Shockingly, remnants of logbooks, silverware and food trays, buttons, and buckles all floated in different areas of the sub, moving easily aside as Mac disturbed their resting place.

“Feels like I’m…,” he paused, startled by a near-translucent fish slipping past his mask, “walking through a graveyard.”

_“Well, you are,”_ Kiwanuka commented.

Mac rolled his eyes. “Thanks.”

_“You’re doing great, Mac,”_ Amber spoke up, as though to counter her teammate’s casual honesty. _“I can see you on the monitor, you’re making good time.”_

“Monitor?” Mac asked, pausing.

_“Kind of like an…underwater Find My Friends,”_ Amber explained. _“Kiwanuka and Mouse rigged it up. Just so we didn’t lose you.”_

“Huh,” Mac nodded. “Didn’t know I mattered so much, Kiwanuka.”

_“Don’t get cocky,”_ Kiwanuka grumbled, but Mac could hear the grudging appreciation. _“’sides, it was mainly Mouse’s idea.”_

_“I think you’re growing on him, kid,”_ Jack spoke up.

_“Like a barnacle,”_ Kiwanuka countered, but Mac heard Jack chuckle.

He continued forward, rolling his jaw, and popping his ears as the dark water gave off the impression of increased pressure. He knew, logically, that it was no different this deep into the sub than it had been outside the hole, but the darkness felt smothering. He had to move aside several pieces of wreckage, moving slowly due to the weight of his suit, the push back of the water, and the fact that there were enough metal edges around here to ruin his day really fast.

At one point, he thought for sure he was about to touch what remained of a body, but it turned out to simply be part of a uniform that had somehow stayed intact.

_“How you doing, kid?”_ Jack’s voice came at him from the dark. “ _Your breathing is getting a little fast, think you can even it out for me?”_

“Yeah, sorry,” Mac replied, taking a purposefully slow breath. “Don’t make fun of me for this, but…this is like the worst haunted house ever.”

_“You said that about that hotel downrange, you remember that?”_

Mac paused, blinking. He’d actually forgotten until Jack spoke, but then, like a box being opened inside his mind, a flood of memories surged forward, practically filling his eyes with images of sand and brush and the shelled remains of a bombed-out hotel.

“I do now,” he replied. “Herat, right?”

_“You two were in Afghanistan together?”_ Kiwanuka asked.

_“I was his Overwatch,”_ Jack replied.

“Still is,” Mac chimed in, moving around a crumpled stairwell, and using the twisted metal to pull himself forward.

_“Ain’t that the truth,”_ Jack said, a grin in his voice. _“We got a report of an IED in one sector and this kid wasn’t going to leave until we found it—said if it took out a convoy and he could’ve stopped it, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.”_

Mac let himself sink into the sound of Jack’s voice in his ear, the familiar cadence taking him back to years before when that sound was all he had as a reminder that he wasn’t alone.

_“Only the problem was, by the time it got dark, the only place we hadn’t looked was this bombed-out hotel,”_ Jack continued as Mac found the door to the weapons room. _“Which, you wouldn’t think would be a big deal, ‘cept Mac had to go and point out that it was a perfect perch for someone’s Overwatch, so you know I had to let him search it.”_

_“You didn’t go with him?”_

“He couldn’t,” Mac answered Amber’s question, turning his head as he tried to get his light on the latch and figure out the best way to open the door. “He had to watch the path.”

_“Yep, so I found myself a place up high in one of the buildings we’d already cleared, and he had to go in with nothing but a headlamp and whatever Spidey-sense these EOD guys have that tells them where to look.”_

_“Kinda like now,”_ Huron spoke up.

_“Yeah, kinda like,”_ Jack chuffed.

“Found the room,” Mac interrupted. “Door looks rusted shut, though.”

_“Shit,”_ Kiwanuka muttered. _“Now what?”_

“Well,” Mac grabbed a piece of piping from the floor of the sub, “I got an idea.”

_“This is not the time to make things go boom, bud,”_ Jack cautioned, and Mac could almost see the older man sitting up a bit straighter.

“Not that kind of idea,” Mac reassured him. “The hinges are on the outside of the door,” he reported, “which means it swings out toward me. If I can break off the pins, I think I can pry it open wide enough to get inside.”

Before anyone could argue for or against, Mac wedged the pipe beneath the top pin of the rusty hinge and used another piece of metal as a make-shift hammer.

“Thing about rust damage,” Mac grunted as he felt the pin start to give, “is that it can go either way—seal up a joint or an opening, or….” The pin broke and disintegrated, sending particles of rust through the beam of light by his helmet. “Weaken it.”

He applied the same trick to the bottom pin, then set his tools aside to dig his fingers into the opening and tug. The door gave way with a jerk that sent Mac tumbling back against the rail behind him.

_“You okay, bud?”_

Mac pushed himself forward, tugging his hip away from the rail as his foot rolled on another pipe.

“Yep,” he reported. “Got the door open. Heading inside.”

_“So, what happened?”_ Amber asked. _“Did you find the IED?”_

_“Yeah, he found it,”_ Jack reported. _“And disarmed it. But not without a few, uh…scares.”_

_“There’d been people in the hotel when it was bombed,”_ Kiwanuka guessed.

_“Got it in one,”_ Jack replied, and Mac took a slow breath, turning his head slowly to shine his light around the room. _“The Taliban are mad bastards, too. They liked to play on our fears.”_

_“Thus, the worst haunted house ever,”_ Huron recalled.

“This one beats it,” Mac replied in a hushed voice, his light playing across the nearly perfectly preserved weapons room. “Jack?”

_“I’m here, kid.”_

“There are bodies here,” he reported, his voice choked.

There were four of them, their backs to him, heads down, floating suspended in the icy water. From what he could see, decomposition had been slowed by the frigid temperatures and the one closest to him showed signs of adipocere—a yellowish, waxy material having grown over the man’s face, essentially erasing his features.

Mac felt himself shudder at the sight. The scientist in him recognized biology at work—it was simply what happened to living tissue when immersed in water for extended periods of time. He knew this, recognized this, but the horror that climbed his throat turned logic and science sideways inside him.

“The water’s just…still.” His voice sounded rough in his own ears, as if he’d put it away a long time ago and was just getting it out now because he had nothing else to use. “There’s…uh, no particles, no marine life. It’s like…time stopped.”

He could feel his heart hammering at the base of his throat. It wasn’t just the bodies. He’d been a soldier and an agent—he knew what death looked like.

It was the locked room. The cold water. The darkness.

_Zoe_.

_“Mac, you listen to me, now,”_ Jack’s voice was solid, almost tangible in the darkness. _“We got us a job to do.”_

“It’s like…it’s so much like what…how Zoe—” He couldn’t quite catch his breath. He felt as though the entire ocean were suddenly pressing around him.

_“It’s not her, Mac,”_ Jack said, and Mac noticed all other background noise, all other breathing, all other voices were silent. He didn’t know how Jack had gotten everyone else quiet, but he was grateful. He just needed to hear Jack right now. _“Easy breaths, bud.”_

He fought to slow his breaths. He heard his next exhale shake.

“The…these bodies…their faces—"

_“We’ll make sure those guys get taken care of,”_ Jack promised. _“You just focus on what you gotta do.”_

Mac didn’t reply. He closed his eyes, forcing himself to breathe slowly. Forcing himself to remember the formula for the mixture in his tank. Forcing himself to think through the process of disarming an IED. Forcing himself to remember the layout of that bombed-out hotel.

_“Angus?”_

“I’m okay,” he exhaled. “I got this.” He took a step forward, feeling the water push back as though his living, breathing, light-bearing self was an unwanted presence there. “But, uh…can you, y’know, just…?”

Jack paused for the space of a heartbeat and then, _“Dude, this deep-dive suit is badass,”_ he said, his entire demeanor shifting to a light-hearted, jovial tone.

There was something powerful about the sound of the human voice. Mac had learned early on in Afghanistan that the emotion caught in that sound could cut through chaos and drive him forward when all he wanted to do was stop. It had reminded him that he wasn’t alone in the madness that surrounded him.

Someone saw him, someone knew him, someone was watching out for him.

And in that instant, Jack knew instinctively to resume the good-natured bitching and complaining that had kept Mac centered in the desert. _“I feel like a Mandalorian…only, y’know, without the jetpack. Only, how cool would_ that _be? A jetpack on this sucker? Zipping past all the sharks like, hasta la vista, baby!”_

Mac grinned, his heartbeat settling down, and he moved toward where he knew, based on schematics, the uranium would be stored.

“It’s too cold for sharks down here,” he reminded Jack.

_“Eh, details,”_ Jack scoffed, and Mac could picture the wave of his hand, batting the details away. _“Y’know, they really missed an opportunity with the_ Die Hard _sequels, come to think of it,”_ Jack continued. _“John McClane on a boat? Fighting the terrorists underwater?”_

“Didn’t Steven Seagal do something like that?” Mac commented, just to stir Jack up.

_“Blasphemer,”_ Jack scoffed. _“That’s worse than mixing up_ Die Hard _and_ Lethal Weapon _.”_

“Found it,” Mac reported as he exposed the internal workings of the nuclear engine. “Looks like the fission transfer equipment is…more or less intact.”

_“Can you extract the tank?”_ asked G, startling Mac. He’d not heard his voice among the rest prior to this.

“Eventually,” Mac replied, blinking his blurring vision. It was hard to concentrate with the narrowed center of focus being just his head lamp. “The wiring isn’t rusted through, but it’s also…uh, complicated.”

His gloves felt heavy and awkward as he moved the wiring apart, but he didn’t dare remove them—his hands would freeze too quickly for him to safely remove the uranium cannister.

“This is where we could really use Riley,” Mac commented.

_“I might be able to improvise,”_ Jack offered. Mac grimaced—while he appreciated Jack’s willingness to help him no matter what, there were some things that couldn’t be fixed with a hero speech. _“Gimme a sec.”_

“Jack, wait, it’s okay. I can figure it out.”

_“I just talk and he hears me?”_ Mouse suddenly said in Mac’s ear.

Mac grinned; he should have known better.

“Thanks, Jack,” he murmured. “I can hear you, Mouse!”

_“You’re looking at the nuclear engine compartment?”_

“Correct,” Mac replied, anchoring himself so that he only saw the wires and not the bodies floating in his periphery or the weapons tubes behind him.

As Mouse began to read the schematics of the fission reactor, Mac removed the EOD tools he’d slid into the compartments of his dive suit and began to detach the wires from the uranium cannister. The fission reactor was connected to more than just the engine, he realized. Pausing in his work, he leaned forward, peering into the compartment.

“They have this connected to their weapons control,” he said softly.

_“That is…not on the schematics,”_ Mouse stated, sounding puzzled.

Mac nodded. “Yeah, it wouldn’t be—it…well, honestly, it looks like a custom job.”

_“Custom?”_ Jack asked. _“You mean, like they had a…a_ you _on board?”_

Mac huffed an abbreviated laugh. “Kinda,” he replied, blocking out the thought that one of the now faceless men floating in the room with him could have been the one to manufacture this modification. “Looks like they were trying to amplify the weapons thrust, almost.”

_“Can you…un-amplify it?”_ Jack asked.

“Gimme a minute,” Mac muttered, brain downshifting as he processed the wires and connections he was seeing. “Don’t want to disturb the weapons if I don’t have to…looks like it’s…more or less going to be like…dismantling a bomb.”

He didn’t register that he’d been musing out loud until he heard Jack comment, _“Good thing we got the best EOD tech in the biz on the job then, yeah?”_

Mac felt the side of his mouth pull up in a reflexive grin, then narrowed his focus on the wires. He sank back into the familiar realm of physics—it was really a matter of isolating the leads and wires, ensuring the degrees of freedom of the protons and electrons were taken into consideration….

He visualized the equations, calculating the units of energy, the grounding wires, the lead wires, the potential quantum numbers that would account for any possible variables….

Reaching into the opened unit, he called, “Hey, Mouse, you with me?”

_“I am.”_

“Check on the schematics and see if the housing unit for the missiles matches the one for the fission reactor.”

Mac waited out the silence on the other end. Then, _“It does. Exact match.”_

Mac nodded to himself. “That’s what I thought…,” he rolled his dry lips against his teeth in thought, then took a slow breath as he searched for the wires to cut. “They weren’t trying to amp the weapons—”

_“They were trying to amp the engine,”_ Mouse concluded.

“Trying to run away from whoever got them,” Mac finished.

_“Poor bastards,”_ Jack muttered. _“You still think you can—”_

“Yep,” Mac broke in. “Just like taking apart any other machine—gotta do it piece by piece.”

_“Just watch out for the pieces that can blow you up,”_ G broke in.

“Right,” Mac muttered in reply.

After a few tense moments where his gloved hands wouldn’t quite fit into the housing unit, he was able to isolate the grounding and connecting wires, cut and tie off the leads that joined the uranium to the missiles, and free up the tank.

“Got it,” he reported into the silence, hearing an exhale and picturing Jack close his eyes in relief.

_“Good job, Mac,”_ G complimented him. _“Knew getting you for this was the right move.”_

“Just glad I could help,” Mac replied, resolutely trying _not_ to think of G’s connection to him through Zoe.

Or of the faceless bodies floating in the room around him. Or Zoe’s last, breathless word— _together_ —before the frigid water closed over her head, making that room the last place she would ever see.

Shaking his head to dismiss the intrusive thoughts, he retrieved the heavy tank marked with the universal sign of radioactive material. It was cylindrical and almost too heavy to lift from the container that pulled the uranium and turned it into power that fed the engines.

“Sucker’s heavy.”

_“Well, you probably need a lot of uranium to generate 1.21 gigawatts,”_ Jack commented.

“That was plutonium,” Mac gasped as he pulled the container toward the door, resolutely looking away from the bodies floating in the periphery of the room. “Not uranium.”

_“My bad,”_ Jack amended good naturedly.

“At least you didn’t say kryptonite,” Mac commented as he maneuvered himself and the container through the pried-open door.

_“I believe I may regret asking this question, but have you two created a linguistic code?”_ Mouse asked as Mac stopped to catch his breath.

He huffed a short laugh. “Yes,” he replied.

_“I’m going to just go with Mac on this one,”_ Jack answered.

_“It’s a bit like you’re communicating in Morse Code, except…with oddly placed movie references,”_ Mouse observed.

_“It gets the job done,”_ Jack agreed, and Mac could almost picture the man’s eyes crinkling with the soft grin that often graced his expression when thinking about their partnership.

_“I have an affinity for Morse Code,”_ Mouse confessed, as Mac continued to haul the heavy cannister back through the broken sub.

He’d figured as much, thinking of the repetitive rhythm Mouse tapped against any surface at his disposal. Stimming was common for someone like Mouse, Mac knew.

_“You get a look at the weapons while you were de-nuking the sub?”_ Jack asked.

Mac nodded without thinking. “Someone is going to need to remove the missiles before resurfacing this thing,” he replied, panting slightly as he tugged the cannister carefully around the wreckage inside the sub. “They won’t do any damage now, but it’s hard to say how stable they would be if the wreck is moved.”

_“How’s your air, Mac?”_ Amber spoke up suddenly.

Mac frowned. He’d been so focused on getting through the sub and getting to the container, he hadn’t once checked his air valve. He looked at the reader attached to his wrist.

“Still in the green,” he reported.

_“Yeah? And how close to the yellow?”_ Amber challenged.

Mac grimaced. Jack was not going to be happy. “It’s…close.”

_“Let’s step it up,”_ G ordered, and Mac felt his back straighten with the tone.

He headed out toward the opening much more quickly than he’d ventured in, knowing the lay of the land. He listened as the team spoke with each other, checking on Amber’s status, discussing who would report completion to the Captain. He didn’t hear Jack’s voice, and he knew instinctively that Jack was listening only for him.

Listening for his breathing.

“Almost out,” Mac said as he reached the blast hole, primarily for Jack’s benefit. “This thing’s heavy enough, probably didn’t need the ballast.”

_“Still good to have it just in case,”_ G replied. _“You good to get it to the edge?”_

Mac nodded, then realized what he was doing. “I’m good,” he replied, frowning, and shaking his head a bit, feeling oddly dizzy.

He checked his oxygen status. He was still in the green, but it was edging closer to the yellow. He should have time to hook up the C4 timer and drag the whole contraption to the edge of the ridge on the other side of the sub. He got to work, muscle memory kicking in as he strapped the C4 softball to the uranium container, then hooked both to the bio box filled with weights. It took a bit longer than he expected—his fingers weren’t cooperating with him.

Setting the timer was the simplest part, thankfully. He went for a full hour so that he and Amber had time to return to the _Zephyr_ and they could get Huron monitoring the hydrophone read-out.

“Dropping down to the other side of the sub,” Mac reported, just as his oxygen monitor beeped.

He glanced at it: yellow. Squaring his shoulders, he slid off the edge of the sub with the weighted uranium, landing heavily on the rocky cliff the big boat was resting on and began to slowly drag the bomb behind him to the edge. Turning he looked out into the inky blackness that surrounded the cone of light from his headlamp.

It took his breath away—vertigo kicking in with force. For a moment he simply stood and looked, the enormity of the canyon before him, the seeming impossibility of space, was mesmerizing. It felt like he was standing on the dark side of the moon, not a hundred feet below the surface of the ocean.

He tried to take a deep breath to center himself and found his vision blurring, a _swoop_ feeling engulfing his head.

He needed to get moving.

Tugging the bomb toward him with a grunt of effort, he lifted it up as far as he could, breath coming in short bursts of air from the exertion, then with a surge of strength he flung the whole thing off the edge of the cliff.

Unfortunately, the momentum was more than he was prepared for and his balance shifted, pulling him over the edge with a sharp cry of alarm.

_“Mac!”_

He could hear Jack’s voice, but the only thing he was able to do was flail his arms for the edge of the cliff, his heavy, glove-covered fingers digging into the silt and sand beneath him. He was able to get a grip, his body bouncing off the side of the rocky surface, and suddenly he felt a rush of cold around his hip, across his midsection.

_“Mac—report!”_

That was G.

He knew he needed to reassure them that he was still there, still breathing, but for some reason, he couldn’t seem to get his lips to wrap around the words in his head. The letters simply floated in front of him like newspaper font, scrambling up and realigning until meaning was lost.

_“Amber, you see him?”_

_“Relocating,”_ Amber’s voice responded. _“I can see the light from his headlamp. He’s over the edge, but not by much.”_

“’m…okay,” Mac replied. “B-bomb wasss too h-heavy,” he reported, frowning as his tongue caught against the back of his teeth.

That was weird.

_“Jesus, don’t do that to me, kid,”_ Jack breathed into his ear.

He sounded really close. And really worried.

“’m okay,” Mac repeated.

He felt oddly euphoric. As if he let go and leaned back, the ocean would simply hold him in her embrace, and he wouldn’t fall and land at the bottom with the bomb and explode.

He’d just…float. “’m good.”

_“Mac, what’s your air situation,”_ came another voice, this one sounding like Kiwanuka, but…it also sounded worried. And Kiwanuka didn’t like him…so, there’s no way he’d worry about him. _“Hey, Boy Wonder. Gimme a color.”_

Mac blinked. Okay, that sounded more like it.

He rotated his wrist, remembering at the last second not to let go of the rock wall. “’s…red,” he reported. “But not like…like _bright_ red or anything. More like…like red wire red.”

His eyes were blurring a bit the more he stared at the gauge and he blinked, shaking his head. He looked at the rock wall in front of him.

Why was he clinging to a rock wall, again? He really wanted to just let go.

_“Sounds like hypoxia,”_ he heard Kiwanuka mutter.

For a split second, Mac felt true fear. He knew that word and it wasn’t a good word. But then he lost both—the meaning and the fear.

“I kinda want to just let go,” he sighed. “Can I just let go?”

_“No!”_ Jack.

God, Jack sounded totally freaked out. Was he mad?

“You mad, Jack?”

_“No, kid, I’m not mad,”_ Jack replied quickly, _“but before you let go, you need to get yourself back up to the top of the cliff. Can you do that for me?”_

Huh. Yeah, okay, that made sense. The ground was strong. It could hold him.

He pushed his feet against the dirt and leveraged his arms until his chest was over the edge of the cliff, then boosted himself a bit further. The cold sensation spread from his mid-section to his chest and he shuddered, then rolled to his back looking up at lights floating above him.

“I did it.”

_“That’s good, kiddo. That’s real good.”_ Now it sounded like Jack was tired. He could relate—he was so tired. More tired than he ever remembered being in his life.

He heard someone exhale and then another voice in his ear, this one sounding a lot like Peña. Only…Peña was dead. Right?

_“Mac, I need you to listen to me right now.”_

“Peña?”

_“No, it’s Kiwanuka,”_ the voice replied. _“You listening, kid?”_

“Yeah.”

_“Amber’s going to come down as close as she can, but you have to get yourself into the mini sub. She can’t open the hatch for you. Can you do that?”_

“Sure,” Mac replied, but didn’t move. His head was swimming, and he couldn’t seem to take a deep breath. “Just…lemme catch…catch my breath.”

_“No, Mac, you gotta go now,”_ Kiwanuka barked at him. _“You don’t move now you’re not moving at all.”_

Mac blinked at that. Some part of his brain knew what the man was saying was right, but he was so dizzy, and his body felt so heavy. Maybe it wasn’t so bad to not move at all….

_“Mac, please.”_

Okay, that was Jack. He knew that voice, no doubt.

He’d know it the dark. In the middle of the freezing ocean. In the middle of a desert. When he was most alone. That was a voice that had pulled him from nightmares and through pain.

That was a voice he promised he wasn’t going to leave again.

_“Please, I need you to do what he says, okay? I need you to move. Right now.”_

He really wanted to—if for nothing else than to get that tone out of Jack’s voice. It was as though his words were too full and completely empty at once.

“Tired, Jack,” he tried, his voice skipping across stuttered breaths like a stone on a pond.

_“Specialist MacGyver! You get your ass up right the hell now!”_ Mac felt his spine straighten in automatic reaction to Jack’s sudden authoritative tone. _“You hear me? Get going!”_

“Yessir,” he gasped, his lips tingling, his eyes blurring. “’m going.”

He could see the lights from the mini sub coming level with him, and he rolled over, then pushed to his hands and knees, lifting his thousand-pound head on a trembling neck.

“See it,” he managed.

_“Hatch is right above you, Mac,”_ Amber told him. _“Just get into the interior room and I’ll get you.”_

“’kay,” he whispered, his vision narrowing to a point of light just above the hatch, hands reaching for it, turning, letting the door drop open, pulling himself inside.

_“Seal the hatch and hit the button, Mac,”_ Amber coached. _“You can do it.”_

He twisted the hatch door and slapped his hand against the seal, sinking to the ground on hollow legs as the water rushed out, emptying the holding tank, and pressurizing the space. He felt his lungs panicking against his ribcage, spasming in harsh, rapid gasps, his neck arching instinctively as though to offer more space for the air that was simply not there.

He couldn’t feel his hands, his legs seemed to be nothing more than heavy limbs sprawled beneath him, and the chilled feeling across his chest was making him shake. A loud buzz sounded just above his head and he jerked, startled, a voice shouting in his ear, _“He’s in! He’s in! I’ve got him!”_

The next thing he knew, the helmet and breather were being tugged from his head and a new mask was pressed against his face, cool air flooding his senses. He gasped, dragging in the pure oxygen hungrily, not truly registering how close he’d come to suffocating until he felt sensation return to his lips, his fingers tingling with pins and needles.

“That’s it, just breathe,” Amber was saying to him, her face in the shadows as she hovered over him.

_“You got him?”_

“I got him,” Amber replied to Kiwanuka’s frantic question. “Give us a minute, Mikey.”

Mac continued to drag in breaths, clarity returning with each gulp of air. “How…how long?”

“Since you went all _Beautiful Mind_ on us?” Amber asked. “Only about ten minutes.”

“N-need to get…up to the…surface,” Mac reached for her arm, but she shook him off, keeping the oxygen mask firmly in place.

“We can give it another two minutes.”

“Timer’s got…f-fifty left,” Mac gasped.

His words were stilted, the rhythm of his sentences punctuated by small shivers and quick gasps for air, but there was still a part of him that rejected the feeling of the oxygen mask, despite knowing it was life-giving oxygen and not suffocating nitrogen flowing into his nose and mouth. The sensation wasn’t something he was able to easily shrug off. He reached for the mask again, unable to help himself.

“We’re good, Mac,” Amber put a hand on his wrist. “Just breathe a minute, okay? That was a close one. Your lips are still blue.”

“They are?” He blinked in surprise, dropping his hand. He could at least feel them now. He rolled them against his teeth to prove it to himself.

“And your hands are shaking.”

He held up his trembling hands. “’m cold.”

_“Okay, so that’s not right,”_ Kiwanuka chimed in. _“Get him into Dolly and get him out of that suit.”_

“Now you’re speaking my language,” Amber grinned, giving Mac a wink. She slipped the strap of the oxygen mask over his head. “Keep the mask on, yeah?”

Mac nodded, grabbing Amber’s outstretched hand, and allowing her to help him to his feet and up through the second hatch door. He was still dizzy, though not as much, and his legs were trembling with the effort of movement.

“That sucked,” he muttered, his voice muffled by the oxygen mask. “Felt like…like I was…drowning. On air.”

“I’ll bet,” Amber glanced back at him as he stumbled over the low passageway. “I advise against drowning in general. Kinda gets in the way of that whole living thing.”

Mac nodded. “Definitely don’t want a repeat performance.”

They closed the hatch behind them, and Amber went to the driver’s seat, flipping several levers. Mac put a hand against the hull for balance as he felt the mini sub begin to slowly ascend.

“Let’s get you out of that—” Amber broke off suddenly, eyeing his suit as she turned to face him.

“What?” Mac asked, looking at her with confusion. “What is it?”

“Think I know why you went hypoxic so fast,” she replied, her hand ghosting over the webbed netting that covered the tubes he and Mouse had fashioned to his dive suit to adjust the oxygen and nitrogen mixture. “Tubes are cut.”

_“Cut?”_ Jack’s voice broke in.

Mac blinked in surprise, looking down at himself. “Holy shit.” He frowned, thinking back. “The door,” he remembered. “When I pulled it open, I bounced against a rail. I…I didn’t think it caused any damage.”

“Normally, it wouldn’t have,” Amber shrugged. “Dive suits don’t usually have air tubes here.”

Mac grimaced. “Don’t say anything to Mouse,” he said quietly.

_“Already heard,”_ Mouse reported, making Mac wince. _“I’m adjusting the schematics now for next time.”_

“Lesson learned?” Mac lifted a shoulder, and Amber shook her head with an exasperated roll of her eyes.

“That’s a pretty mean lesson,” Amber muttered, as she began to detach the dive suit buckles and latches, “seeing as how your suit is leaking and this water is like…thirty-four degrees. If that. Let’s get this off you and get you warmed up.”

_“Mac? How you doing, kiddo?”_

“I’m better, Jack,” he replied, still feeling slightly spacey and shaky, but much clearer than before. “Did I…did I call you Peña?”

_“Not me, that was our botanist friend here,”_ Jack replied, his voice leveling out to sounding much more like himself.

“Sorry, man,” Mac offered as he helped Amber remove the top of his dive suit, shivering harder as his wet thermals were exposed to the cooler air. His head had started to pound. He leaned a hand against the hull as they peeled the legs free. “You must’ve sounded like him.”

_“Who’s Peña?”_ Kiwanuka asked.

_“He was Mac’s EOD instructor,”_ Jack explained, ending further details with his tone. _“Speaking of, how much time on that bomb, Hoss?”_

Mac did some quick calculations, allowing for both his confusion and delay in getting him into the mini-sub. “About forty-two minutes.”

“Plenty of time,” Amber smiled, wrapping a mylar blanket around his shoulders. “Keep this around you for now—would prefer to get those wet clothes off you to warm you up, but since I don’t have anything else to put you in….”

“Yeah, no,” Mac offered her a wan smile. “I’m good.”

“You guys have some warm, dry clothes on hand for him?” Amber asked, instinctively glancing up through the window toward the hull of the _Zephyr_ and Mac saw her frown.

_“Roger that,”_ Jack replied.

“Hey…,” Amber moved away from Mac, prompting him to trail after her, his shivers lessening as the mylar caused his body heat to regulate. “You guys expecting any visitors?”

Mac echoed her frown, looking up through the window, seeing nothing but dark ocean. He glanced down at the gauges as Amber sank into the driver’s seat and wrapped her hands around the yoke.

_“Negative,”_ G replied.

“Mac, let’s get you back home,” Amber said over her shoulder. “How ‘bout you strap in?”

Mac nodded, sinking gratefully into the jump seat behind Amber, fastening the belt over the mylar. The oxygen mask had grown uncomfortable, and he had to forcefully remind himself to keep it in place—it felt so good to breathe without gasping he was okay keeping it on for the time being.

“Hey, Mikey,” Amber called to Kiwanuka, “can you put Mouse on?”

_“He’s got his comms,”_ Kiwanuka replied. _“Not sure where he got off to—headed up to the vents after he heard about the cut tubes. And stop calling me ‘Mikey’.”_

“Not on your life,” Amber grinned. “It’s way too much fun. Mouse, you gonna talk to us, pal?”

_“Your problem isn’t me talking,”_ Mouse’s voice slipped into their ears, _“your problem is you not listening.”_

Mac blinked, pulling the oxygen mask down away from his mouth. “Mouse?” At the responding silence, Mac grimaced. “I’m sorry about the tubes, man. I should have thought about that.”

Still no response. Mac’s brows pulled low over his eyes. There was something not right. It tugged at Mac’s memory with persistence.

_“Don’t worry about it,”_ Kiwanuka replied. _“He’ll be okay—he’s probably just spying on the crew.”_

Mac looked up at Amber who nodded in agreement. “Someone else want to check the radar?” she asked. “Huron?”

_“What am I looking for?”_ Huron asked, as Amber pivoted the mini sub toward the dive pool entrance.

“Dunno,” Amber replied, eyes going from her instruments to the window. “Just…if I didn’t know better, I’d say there was another boat alongside us.”

_“Maybe it’s a whale? Or a glitch in the matrix?”_ Huron replied.

_“Well, that’s why we have these shiny instruments,”_ G retorted. _“How ‘bout you go check it out?”_

Amber looked over her shoulder at Mac. “You good?”

Mac nodded, frowning distractedly at the lights hitting the underside of the _Zephyr_. “Yeah, just…something about what Mouse said. Sounded…familiar?”

“You get told off a lot for not listening?” Amber asked, a small smile ticking up the corner of her mouth.

Mac huffed an abbreviated laugh. “Yeah, sometimes.” He shook his head slowly. “But this…wasn’t that. I mean…I haven’t known him long, obviously, but…did that _sound_ like Mouse?”

_“No,”_ G replied immediately.

Mac played the words over in his head as Amber maneuvered into position, preparing to surface and then dock. His eyes played over the window as Amber kept hers locked on the instrument panel. He could see the lights hit the _Zephyr’s_ hull, but then…another curve next to it.

That was no whale.

_I have an affinity for Morse Code…._

“Oh, shit,” he breathed, causing Amber to shoot a worried look over her shoulder. “Jack, Captain Phillips.”

_“Dude, the Captain’s name is Dreymon,”_ Jack replied.

Mac shook his head, reaching for his seat harness.

“Stay strapped in,” Amber barked at him. “We’re docking.”

“Jack,” Mac hissed again, pulling the oxygen mask away from his face. “Captain. _Phillips_.”

He suddenly knew what Mouse had been trying to say—to warn them using _their_ version of Morse Code, quoting a line from movie about a hostile takeover of a ship by pirates. He had to get the message to Jack without being overt, unsure how much of their comms were able to be picked up.

_“G,”_ Jack’s voice came over now, as steady, and serious as Mac had ever heard it. He exhaled in relief, knowing his partner had taken the hint based on the shift in his voice. He was in Delta Mode. _“Cut the comms. Now.”_


	5. Chapter 5

**PART FIVE**

**Jack**   
_NOAA ship, Zephyr, the North Atlantic  
Sunday evening_

“What the hell?” G frowned, watching as Jack tapped the comm in his ear.

“Cut the comms,” Jack repeated, striding toward their communication room where Huron stood in the doorway, looking back out at him, puzzled. “Dude, need you to kill the music.”

“What’s going on, Dalton?” Kiwanuka called from the edge of the dive tank as the mini sub started to surface.

“Amber was right,” Jack barked. “We got a ship next to us.”

At that, Huron rotated and darted back to the instrument panels, the backbeat of The Beastie Boys cutting out and the only sound echoing through the cavernous research bay that of the mini sub settling into place.

“What?” G exclaimed, passing Jack as he headed to the communication room. “Where are you getting that?”

“ _Captain Phillips_ ,” Jack repeated, blocking the doorway behind G. “Mouse was warning us—there’s a boat next to us and it’s bad news.”

Huron flicked two switches and Jack saw two green blips appear on one of his radars.

“That’s no moon,” Huron whispered. “That’s a space station.”

“Radio Dreymon,” G ordered even as Huron was reaching for the headset. “Go help Kiwanuka with the sub,” G ordered Jack. “Mac’s gonna need some warm clothes to get his temp regulated and we’re going to—”

“Comms are dead, G,” Huron interrupted as Jack was striding away.

“What?” G repeated, grabbing the headset from Huron and flicking the switch. “Shit.”

“We got us some pirates on our hands,” Jack tossed back over his shoulder as he made his way toward the sub as the top hatch was opening. “And I’m not talking the cool, rum-drinking Jack Sparrow kind, man. I’m talking the kind we maybe don’t walk away from.”

He grabbed the Adidas joggers Mac wore earlier and a sweatshirt he’d collected for Mac as he closed the distance between himself and the sub.

“Huron,” G snapped. “Seal the hatch.”

“With what?” Huron was on his feet, hands spread to his sides.

“I don’t know,” G grumbled, moving to follow Jack toward the mini sub. “I’m literally making this up as I go. Just find something.”

Amber was the first to emerge from the sub. She climbed nimbly out of the hatch and hurried down the ladder, nodding to Kiwanuka, then pivoting toward G.

“It’s definitely a boat out there, Boss,” she called. “Mac thinks it’s….”

“Pirates,” G, Jack, and Mac all chimed in at once as Mac’s head emerged from the top of the mini-sub.

“Yep,” Amber nodded, pointing at Jack as he moved past her.

He paused as Kiwanuka climbed the ladder half-way, unhampered by the deep-dive suit Jack wore, and helped steady Mac as he swung his legs over the edge of the sub, leaving the hatch open as he made his way down. Jack felt his heart slam and curled his fingers into fists against his palm.

The sound of Mac’s desperate breaths, his spacy confusion, the knowledge that he couldn’t do _anything_ to save his friend rushed back to hit him full-force the minute he laid eyes on the blond man’s lanky frame.

Mac had always been a slim guy, the kind of lean muscle that spoke of restlessness and constant motion. Now, though, all that sinewy muscle seemed to Jack to be entirely too fragile as he made his way down the ladder and landed solid and safe on the dock.

Unable to help himself, Jack lunged forward, grabbing Mac up against him and hugged him tight. He felt the _whoosh_ of air exit Mac’s lungs as he tightened his grip but didn’t let go until Mac’s hands rested on his sides in a return hug.

“Why are you wet?” Mac asked in a strained voice.

“Because he tried to go in after you,” Kiwanuka said, shaking his head.

Mac blinked, pushing away from Jack to regard him with surprise. “Like…dive down there?”

“Kid, you had me scared to death,” Jack confessed, unable to mask the tremor in his voice. “And ain’t that why I got this costume on? To go save your scrawny ass when you get into trouble?”

He could see the marks on Mac’s face from where the oxygen mask had been. His blue eyes were still blown a bit wide, pupils slightly too large in the brightly lit research bay. But he seemed steady and the grin he gave Jack was pure Mac.

“By the time you got down to me, we’d have been back up here,” Mac pushed at Jack’s shoulder.

“That’s what I told him,” Kiwanuka waved a hand toward Mac as if to say, _see_?

Jack shrugged, his hand on Mac’s shoulder, squeezing the muscle there. “Couldn’t help it,” he said. “You were in trouble.”

Mac’s eyes softened and he nodded with a half-smile tugging up the corner of his mouth, taking the clothes from Jack’s hands.

“Guys, we’re _all_ gonna be in trouble if we don’t figure out what these assholes want,” G chimed in. “Mouse clearly saw something—”

“Where is that kid?” Kiwanuka interrupted, moving away from G and Jack and toward the comms room. “Anyone heard from him?”

Jack lost track of Kiwanuka as Mac moved to the side of the dive pool and pulled the Adidas pants over his thermal leggings, but then stripped the wet thermal top off and dropped it to the floor before pulling the black sweatshirt over his head. He moved easily—as if he hadn’t just been hypoxic less than fifteen minutes ago—but Jack wasn’t taking any chances.

“I’ll grab my shoes—” Mac started.

A loud clang shook through the research bay causing all of them to jump.

“G!” Huron called out. “They’re coming through.”

“They break that seal without the other door shut, we’re fucked,” G rushed toward the door.

Jack and Mac exchanged a glance and Mac cast his eyes around their immediate area, clearly looking for something that he could use to help the situation. Jack moved forward, his only thought to put himself between Mac and whatever was coming through that hatch. As if he knew exactly what Jack was trying to do, Mac stepped closer, leveling his shoulder with Jack’s, and held up one hand in a curled fist.

Jack sighed, bouncing his fist off Mac’s. “We got this,” he whispered.

“You bet your ass we do,” Mac replied, matching his tone.

The reassuring sound of the seal locking in place had them all taking a collective breath. Huron stepped back from the door, drawing even with G and Amber. Jack glanced around, counting heads.

“Where’s Kiwanuka?” he whispered to Mac.

Mac shook his head, his blue eyes pinned to the door, his body tense. When the hatch opened, Jack’s head snapped to front, his eyes on the men stepping through. The first one he saw was a pale man with white-blond hair dressed all in black.

Behind him, though, was Ethan Roberts, the _Zephyr_ ’s navigator.

And suddenly Jack felt himself downshift, Mac’s posture matching his. As chaotic as the moment they were standing in was, this felt familiar. Missions dealing with a coupe, a betrayal, a power- or money-hungry Bad Guy who was hell-bent on turning their world sideways was a typical Tuesday at the Phoenix.

To reassure himself that Mac was ready for the brawl this was about to become after having nearly suffocating 100 feet below the surface just a few minutes ago, Jack glanced over at his partner. Mac’s eyes were steady, serious. As though feeling the weight of Jack’s eyes, he tilted his chin slightly, lifting a brow and mouthed _hinky_ at him.

Relief sparked a live wire under Jack’s skin. When he moved in sync with the younger man, they were a combined force of nature. Lips pressed flat in irritation at this mission’s sudden change in direction, Jack jerked his chin toward the navigator and mouthed _Dread Pirate Roberts_. Mac smirked, crossing his arms in front of him and leveling his eyes on the men entering the research bay.

As the albino-looking man moved further into the research bay flanked by Roberts, four more men dressed in similar garb to the albino entered the bay, each of them carrying a weapon strapped to their backs. Jack momentarily wondered how they’d all fit into the small transition space, but then dismissed the concern when G spoke up.

“What the hell is this, Roberts?”

The albino let his pale eyes sweep over G, then leaned his head toward Roberts, murmuring something.

“Shit,” Jack muttered.

“What is it?” Mac whispered.

“They’re Russian,” Jack glanced askance at his partner.

Mac’s lips settled into a thin line as he drew his chin back, absorbing that information. Roberts had betrayed them to the very people they were trying to keep the sub away from. This was not good.

“You two,” Roberts lifted his chin, his eyes on Mac and Jack. “Get up here.”

“Hey,” G snapped, stepping forward. “I said, what the hell is going on?”

Jack and Mac didn’t move as Roberts’ cold eyes landed on G. “You took something from these gentlemen,” he said with the same detached, falsely friendly tone that had set Jack’s radar off earlier. “They simply want it back.”

“We didn’t take anything,” Huron spoke up and before anyone could react, one of the pirates swung his weapon forward and slammed the butt of it into Huron’s gut, bowing the lanky man and sending him to his knees.

“Hey!” G surged forward and Roberts swung a gloved fist, crashing it across G’s jaw. The big Norwegian didn’t go down, but it staggered him.

Mac stepped forward on instinct, but Jack put his arm out, halting his movement.

G cupped his sore jaw, glaring at Roberts. “So, that’s it, then, huh? You just sell us out? What’d you do with Dreymon? He dead?”

Roberts rolled his eyes. “Spare me the drama. No one is _dead_ ,” he muttered, shaking his head, and moving around G toward Jack and Mac.

Two of the pirates stepped into his place guarding G, their weapons in hand. Jack narrowed his eyes at the weapons; they appeared to be harpoon guns, not rifles. Which, he realized in hindsight, would make sense if they were used to boarding a ship at sea without warning.

“He’s simply confined until we complete our mission,” Roberts concluded, stepping too close to Mac for Jack’s liking. Roberts let his gaze skim Mac from head to feet. “You know where it is, don’t you?”

“If you’re talking about the sub,” Mac spat at him, his disgust for the man and these tactics clear in his dead-eyed expression, “you’re the damn navigator. You should know exactly where it is.”

Roberts gave Mac a tight smile and then without warning punched him, hard, in the gut. Mac gasped, his hand going to his belly as he went down on one knee. Jack launched himself at Roberts, gripping the front of the man’s shirt and shoving him back and away from Mac.

“Try that again and see what happens,” Jack growled.

The rest of the pirates pulled their weapons, leveling them on the research team, faces impassive. The albino stepped forward, his hand going for the weapon attached to his back. Jack shot a lethal glance his way.

“ _Otvali_ ,” he snarled, watching with satisfaction as the albino’s eyes widened slightly at Jack’s use of Russian. He stepped back.

Jack shook Roberts once and only released him when he saw Mac push back upright to both feet.

“They ain’t lying to you, chief,” Jack snapped, hands in fists at his sides, ignoring the weapons pointed at them. “We don’t have anything from the sub.”

“Your whole purpose for being here,” Roberts replied, each word clipped as if they pained him to say, “is to retrieve the uranium—which rightfully belongs to my Russian friends, here.”

“We didn’t retrieve it,” Mac told him, his voice rough. “We blew it up.”

“ _Chush’ sobach’ya_ ,” the albino retorted.

“Ain’t bullshit, _mudak_ ,” Jack stepped toward the albino, shoulders rolling in a challenge. “Dropped it off a big-assed cliff and _boom_.” He mimed an explosion, pushing his fingers away from each other.

“Why would you do this?”

“So assholes like you couldn’t get their hands on it,” G called out from where he stood next to Huron and Amber.

Robert’s eyes snapped over to glare at G. He didn’t seem to notice the research team was down by two, and Jack wasn’t going to call his attention to it.

“Don’t know what you were hoping to accomplish here, Roberts,” G continued, “but I’m pretty sure you just screwed the pooch.”

Face flushed red with fury, Roberts pulled his side-arm—this one filled with _actual_ bullets—and pointed the barrel at Amber’s head. The young oceanographer whimpered, closing her eyes, her hand reaching instinctively for Huron. Jack watched as G and Huron both flinched and stilled, self-preservation overriding their protective instincts in a heartbeat.

“You have exactly one minute to get the uranium for us, or we start shooting,” Roberts declared.

“We _don’t have it_ ,” Mac exclaimed, one hand out in exasperation. He gestured toward the mini sub. “You can go look for yourself.”

Roberts narrowed his eyes, moving the barrel of his sidearm from Amber’s head to Mac’s chest. Mac simply stared at him; his expression filled with the same dead-eyed disgust as before. Jack felt his heartrate elevate, but knew it was hardly the first time Mac had a gun pointed at him.

“ _You_ go look,” Roberts ordered.

“What?” Mac drew his head back in honest confusion.

“You go into that…contraption,” Roberts jerked his chin toward the mini sub.

Mac lifted an eyebrow. “You want me to go into the DSV and look for the thing I just told you we blew up?”

 _“Khvatit etogo!”_ The albino growled. _“Prosto strelyay v nikh.”_

“Oh hell, no,” Jack muttered. “You ain’t shooting anyone,” he surged forward and grabbed the albino’s harpoon gun, shoving the barrel upright, the harpoon ejecting with a _shhhink_ sound and embedded itself into the dive pool’s retracted flood doors.

His movement acted as a trigger and from the corner of his eye he saw Mac slap the barrel of the pistol away, launching himself at Roberts, his body a well-trained weapon. Their motion was choreographed from years of fighting side-by-side—though Mac was bare-foot and Jack was hampered by the weight of the deep-dive suit he still wore.

Forearm block, fist to jawbone, elbow to sternum, knee up.

For a moment, it felt almost planned. As though there had never been a time where he and Mac had been apart. As though Mac were reading his cues and sending his own.

As Jack fought the albino, he instinctively took stock of where the others were. G and Huron had tackled two of the pirates. Amber had retreated to the communications room.

Mac grabbed the barrel of a harpoon gun and used it like a bat, sending Roberts sprawling. As the albino collapsed with a well-aimed punch, Jack took another of the pirates out by a low tackle, growling in pain as the man brought an elbow down on the small of his back. He flipped over, thumbs pressing into the pirate’s eye sockets as the other man wrapped long fingers around Jack’s neck.

And then the lights flickered.

“G!” Huron shouted from somewhere to Jack’s left.

“They’re cutting the power!” Amber yelled from the relative safety of one of the labs.

Jack heard a harpoon gun empty and the matching _thwang_ as the projectile hit a wall. He slugged the pirate he was fighting with a hard uppercut, then flipped the man around in a choke hold, squeezing until the body in his arms went limp—just in time to catch another body as it launch itself at him.

It was the albino. Again.

The lights went out for a moment.

Jack heard another harpoon gun empty and this time there was a corresponding grunt of pain from someone before the generator kicked in and the lights came on at half power. Another of the pirates rushed him and Jack caught the man with a punch to the throat, felling him before he focused the rest of his attention on the albino currently trying to pummel his ribcage.

Crashing off to his left pulled his attention for a split second and he saw G grabbing one of the pirates off of Mac by the hair, throwing him across the room just before a different one tackled Mac, sending them both stumbling backwards to the dive pool. Jack felt a rib give with the impact of a fist just as Mac cried out with a splash of water.

“Oh, you son…of a… _bitch_!” Jack growled, driving the pirate up against the wall, dodging a swing at his temple and slamming his fist against the other man’s face.

“Jack!”

Mac’s voice sounded panicked, desperate. Jack looked over and saw that Mac was struggling against the hold of a much larger pirate in the dive pool. He’d managed to get himself to the mini sub, clearly trying to use the machine as leverage, but was losing ground.

“Ja—”

The pirate shoved Mac beneath the surface and Jack saw red. Forgetting all about the one he’d been struggling against, he moved to get to Mac only to find himself suddenly on his knees, his ears ringing, with a vicious hit to the side of his head. He shook his head slowly, trying to clear his vision when a boot caught him in the ribs, sending him sideways, coughing desperately for air.

“Get in the sub!” He heard Amber shout. “Use the sub, Mac!”

Jack crawled forward, his breath coming back, but before he got far a boot came down between his shoulder blades, sending him to the floor with a weak shout. His head spun and he struggled to get his hands under him to leverage himself upright. He strained to see Mac, feeling the pressure of the boot grind into his spine.

He could see Mac clutching at the edge of the mini sub to get away from the pirate, moving around the machine to where Jack knew the ladder was. The pirate was trying to grab for him, but Mac kicked him in the face. On a rage-filled growl, Jack pressed his hands flat to the floor and shoved upright, throwing the albino, who was trying to grind him into the floor, off balance. As he clambered to his knees, his hand knocked against Roberts’ discarded sidearm.

Collecting it quickly, Jack scrambled to his feet and shot the albino in the shoulder, then again in the knee, just to be sure. Roberts roared, diving for Jack, and sending him once more to the floor of the research bay. The pistol fell from Jack’s grip and he used both hands to shove Roberts off him, flipping himself over and climbing quickly to his feet. Without waiting to see what the rest would do, he turned and ran as quickly as the bulky dive suit allowed to the other side of the mini sub, just as Mac dropped down inside.

“NOW HEAR THIS!” A booming voice cut through the chaos, distracting the pirates as Jack reached for the man trying to follow Mac inside the submersible. “THE SHIP HAS BEEN BOARDED. AUTHORITIES HAVE BEEN CALLED. ALL PERSONNEL REPORT TO YOUR STATIONS. REPEAT: AUTHORITIES HAVE BEEN CALLED. ALL PERSONNEL REPORT TO YOUR STATIONS.”

Jack pulled the man off the ladder of the mini sub and shoved him into the dive pool. He didn’t really remember Captain Dreymon’s voice, but if he were a betting man, he’d say that was not it. In fact, it sounded a lot more like Kiwanuka. And he hoped that meant the man had control of the ship.

Mac popped his head out of the top of the sub; as soon as he caught sight of Jack, he started to climb out.

“Stay in there, stay in there,” Jack shouted, waving his hand at Mac just as a bullet whizzed by his head, barely missing his ear. He ducked, then looked around the nose of the mini sub to see Roberts taking aim at the top hatch of the mini sub. “Mac, get the hell inside!”

Mac’s head disappeared once more into the interior of the mini sub and Jack kicked at the loose moorings, setting the sub free of its dock. Another bullet ricocheted off the submersible and Jack saw Roberts and two of the other pirates heading around the edge of the dive pool.

Mac shouted to him from within. “Jack!”

“Make a hole,” Jack replied, climbing up the ladder as quickly as his dive suit allowed, then dropping down inside. “That psycho is heading this way.”

“Right,” Mac muttered, dropping into the driver’s seat as Jack pulled the top shut and wrenched the wheel closed. He flipped his wet hair from his eyes, reaching for the sub controls. The mini sub shuddered as Mac powered it up. “I, uh…have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Move,” Jack barked, sliding into the seat the minute Mac vacated it. A bullet pinged off the window just below his eyeline and the glass cracked slightly. “Okay, this isn’t much different from a chopper—”

Another bullet, this time off the side of the sub and Jack heard something snap.

“Just get us out of here,” Mac practically ordered him. “They think the uranium is in here—if we get away, they might leave the others alone.”

“Roger that,” Jack grabbed the yoke, and pushing it forward. “Hang onto something.”

He felt Mac grip the back of his chair and the mini sub began to descend in a swift, semi-controlled fall. Jack tried to steer, thinking to bring it around to the bow of the _Zephyr_ , but it was like flying an elephant.

“Uh, Jack,” Mac called, his voice low and tight. “We got a problem.”

Jack shot a look over his shoulder and saw instantly what Mac was referring to: water was leaking in, pooling on the floor. Frigid, North Atlantic Ocean water.

“Get up on that jump seat,” Jack ordered, quickly glancing a Mac’s bare feet before pulling the yoke back and trying to bring the nose of the sub up. The minute he did, the instrument panel sparked, and the readouts went dead. “Dammit,” he hissed. “We’re dead-stick, Hoss. I got nothing.”

“Okay, uh…good n-news is that we’re r-right above the sub,” Mac said, his voice shuddering with cold.

Jack twisted around, finding his partner with worried eyes. Mac’s blond hair was dark with seawater, pushed back off his face, his sweatshirt and athletic pants were soaked and clinging to him. He was crouched on the jump seat, his bare feet off the floor, but he was visibly shivering.

“How is that good news?”

Mac’s smile shook. “Means we won’t end up at the b-bottom of that cliff when the b-bomb goes off.”

Right. The bomb.

Jack closed his eyes. “Shit. Shit shit shit.”

“We got about…eight-ish minutes,” Mac said shrugged. “Give or take.”

“So, what happens when it goes off with us down here?” Jack asked, brows folded.

“Not sure, really,” Mac replied, shivering hard and wrapping his arms around his knees. “Hopefully nothing.”

“What did I tell you about building a strategy on hope?” Jack muttered, turning back to face the dark expanse of the ocean on the other side of the cracked window.

“Pretty sure you said n-not to.”

Jack’s eyes tracked all around the instrument panel, the steering column, the water now up over the top of his dive boots. “There’s gotta be something you can rig up to get us some power.”

“I’m thinking,” Mac told him, a strange tightness in his voice.

Jack knew that Mac had always struggled with the cold; it slowed him down to regular-person speed when he was trying to pull miraculous solutions out of thin air.

“It’s okay, we’ll…we can figure something out,” Jack tapped the air above the yolk, trying to find a solution to this unexpectedly terrifying predicament they’d managed to get themselves into.

“Jack….” Mac hissed suddenly; the tightness Jack had heard earlier turning brittle.

Jack twisted in the driver’s seat to see what was going on behind him. Mac had an arm raised and was looking down at his side. Jack felt as though a rock of ice settled at the base of his gut. From where he sat, he could see a smear of red on the back and side of the jump seat where Mac was perched.

“Mac…?”

“I didn’t…I didn’t r-realize,” Mac murmured, not lifting his head. “I didn’t know.”

Jack stood, ignoring the controls, the crack window, the dead stick and splashed the two steps it took him to get to Mac. Carefully, he reached for Mac’s black sweatshirt and pulled it gently from his friend’s side. A deep groove about three inches long and an inch across cut a furrow against Mac’s ribcage, exposing muscle, blood painting his pale skin a garish red and still flowing freely. Jack felt his heart drop to his toes.

“I, uh…I think it w-was a harpoon,” Mac finally looked up at him.

Jack remembered the sound of the harpoon gun, the sound of a grunt of pain, never registering that it had been Mac who’d been hit.

“I d-didn’t feel it until now.”

Jack winced at how hard Mac was shivering—partly from cold, partly from pain, and partly from shock.

“We both know adrenalin can do crazy things,” he muttered, gently shifting Mac to the side to get a better look.

“How b-bad we talking?” Mac asked, one hand clutching at his wet sweatshirt to keep it away from the wound, the other curled around the collar of Jack’s dive suit, as though to anchor himself.

The instinctive motion kicked Jack’s gut; he’d lost track of the times Mac had had subconsciously sought reassurance from contact with Jack, even if it was simply gripping the edge of Jack’s shirt.

“Well,” Jack swallowed, grimacing as he tried to press the wound closed eliciting a sharp hiss of pain from Mac. “Remember when we laughed at the harpoon scene in that crappy remake of _House of Wax_?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s less funny now.”

“S-swell.”

Jack looked around the space. “We gotta find something to wrap this up.”

“I saw a first-aid kit before,” Mac told him. “Next to the oxygen mask and dive helmet, yeah, there.”

Jack retrieved the first-aid kit but just as he turned around to Mac, the mini sub lurched and shuddered violently, sending both to the floor, Mac crying out in pain. The sub rocked once, but then settled. Jack pushed himself upright on trembling arms, the freezing water splashing across his bare wrists.

“The Eagle has landed,” he gasped.

“Yeah,” Mac groaned. “God _damn_ this w-water’s cold.”

Jack climbed to his feet, reaching down for Mac’s arm, and carefully pulling him upright, pain visibly rippling across his face like a living thing and pulling a recalcitrant groan from his gut. Jack felt his heart clench at the sound. He helped him to the driver’s seat—a much bigger surface than the jump seat.

“Prop your feet up on the console, there,” Jack instructed, helping Mac ease back so he could get to the cut. “Damn, kid. You really did a number on yourself,” he murmured as he pulled up Mac’s sweatshirt once more.

“Yeah, it…def-definitely hurts,” Mac grunted as he turned so his blood-covered side was accessible.

Jack caught his grimace as Mac rolled his lips flat against his teeth, trying to keep his sounds of pain trapped inside. Jack knew it was because he was afraid that hearing it would trigger him more than their current situation. Sometimes it broke his heart, having someone know him so well.

Digging into the first-aid kit, he found a roll of gauze, some medical tape, and some hydrogen peroxide. Basics.

“This ain’t good, bud,” he whispered.

If he was going to get Mac some real help, they needed to get back up to the _Zephyr_ , but to get back up to the _Zephyr_ , he was going to need Mac’s help. He looked at his partner’s blue eyes and saw them trained on him, steady and trusting, despite the visible shaking of his body, the chattering of his teeth.

He took a slow breath. _Darth Vader._ Steady, even. In and out.

“Nothing to it,” he grinned at Mac. “We’ll wrap you up, get this puppy started, and get back up where it’s warm.”

Mac didn’t say anything, and Jack decided to ignore the _knowing_ look in his eyes. Forgoing the hydrogen peroxide, he used the gauze to pack the wound, whispering a fervent, _sorry, sorry_ when Mac cried out sharply, his back arching slightly away from the pain. Jack proceeded to wrap the entire role of gauze around Mac’s narrow waist, then secure it with the medical tape.

Easing Mac’s wet sweatshirt down, he fixed a smile on his face first before looking back up at Mac.

“Nothing to it,” he repeated softly, his smile slipping as Mac wrapped his trembling arms around himself, pulling his feet from the console and curling them beneath his legs on the driver’s seat.

In the time it had taken him to patch up Mac’s side, the water had risen to Jack’s mid-calf. In a few minutes, it would be over the edge of the chair and Mac wouldn’t be able to stay out of it.

“Jack,” Mac started.

“No now, look,” Jack shook his head. “We’re going figure something out, kid. We always do—”

“Jack!” Mac snapped, dragging Jack’s attention to him. “Hang onto something.” His eyes were big, blue and suddenly terrified.

Of course. The bomb. The freaking _nuclear_ bomb.

Making a quick decision, Jack knelt next to the chair, leaning forward, and grabbed the arms on either side, curling his body around Mac as much as he could. Logically, he knew it wouldn’t do any good—if the bomb were going to take them out this far below the surface, nothing Jack did would protect Mac from it.

But there was something in him that had to try.

And Mac apparently understood. Jack felt him reach up and grab hold of Jack’s dive suit. Both practically held their breath, mentally counting down. Inside of a minute, Jack felt rather than heard a low _thump_ of sound—it practically reverberated in his chest, water rocking the mini sub a bit and then…nothing happened.

The ocean was still.

Jack pulled his head up, arms still braced around Mac. “Wait—that was it?”

Mac was grinning. “It worked!”

“That was it!” Jack repeated with a slightly hysterical whoop in his tone.

“All that should show up is a blip on Huron’s hydrophones,” Mac nodded. He frowned, remembering. “Well, except the pirates won’t care. But still!”

“You really are a genius, huh?” Jack grinned, rocking back on his heels, and then looking around himself in sudden realization. He stood. The water was over his knees and now at the seat level of the chair where Mac perched. “Oh, shit, Mac, we gotta get outta here.”

Mac stood on the chair, bending with the curve of the DSV, water further saturating the cuffs of his pants. “Okay,” he said. “Comms?”

Jack tapped his ear. “Out. My call. Pirates.”

Mac narrowed his eyes, looking around, the pain or the recent jolt of success having jump started his brain once more. Jack watched as his eyes darted quickly, practically seeing a mental whiteboard of multiple solutions surfacing and dismissed in seconds.

“There’s some power in here,” he said, “or the interior lights wouldn’t be on. But that instrument panel is toast.”

Jack nodded, moving to the panel, and kneeling. “The underside is below water. Don’t think hotwiring is an option.”

“What supplies do we have?” Mac asked, stepping down from the chair and gasping as the cold water hit him mid-thigh.

“Hey, hey easy!” Jack called standing and moving to grab Mac’s shoulder. He could feel the almost violent shudders of muscle beneath his grip. “Let me look; get back up on that chair.”

“I-it’s not g-gonna matter in a l-little bit,” Mac pointed out. “T-two is b-better than one.”

Jack huffed in acquiescence. They tore through the meager supplies in the few compartments finding another mylar blanket—which Mac wrapped around himself—an underwater light and two flares, a spare oxygen tank and the mask that Mac had used, and a deep-dive helmet.

“What about on the Akula?” Jack asked, eyes hitting Mac’s shuddering, blue-tinged lips. “You remember if you saw any extra tanks or O2 when you were there?”

Mac shook his head. “E-even if I did, they’d be thirty y-years old and by the t-time you got back….”

“Yeah, yeah. I got it,” Jack dragged a hand down his face.

The mini sub was filling in faster now, coming from multiple areas that he couldn’t begin to identify let alone plug up. Whatever had been powering the internal lights fizzled out and for a moment the darkness was suffocating, but then Jack lit the underwater flares, letting them float and filling the interior with a glowing, pink-tinged light.

The water was up to their waists and Mac was blowing on his hands, biting back a groan of pain as the frigid water cut through him. The deep-dive suit was insulated; Jack’s body temperature was unchanged, though his hands ached from the contact with the freezing water. He couldn’t imagine how cold Mac was right now.

“I got an i-idea,” Mac said, looking at Jack, his eyes heartbreakingly blue in the dim light. “B-but…you’re not going to l-like it.”

“You rig up something that shoots us back up to the surface like a rocket?” Jack offered, reaching for Mac’s arm just to hold onto something.

“N-not that k-kind of idea,” Mac tried for a grin, his lips trembling up at the edges. He took a staggered breath. “I d-drown and you h-haul me back.”

Jack blinked. His brain seemed to screech to a halt, the world around him going silent. Still.

There was no way he’d heard him right.

“What?”

“I know wh-what you’re thinking—”

Jack shook his head slowly, rotating until he was directly facing his partner, his eyes locked onto Mac’s. “No, bud…I don’t think you do.”

His entire purpose in this life was centered on keeping Mac alive. There was no other reality for him—the idea that he _allow_ Mac to die, that death be their solution, was so foreign to him the words had lost meaning. They were simply letters floating around them like the glowing flares.

“N-not more than an hour ago,” Mac continued, “I s-stood right here and said I didn’t want to d-drown—”

“So, what the hell are you saying _now_?” Jack practically shouted, his heart slamming at the base of his throat, choking him with panic so strong it almost had color.

Mac was not saying what it sounded like he was saying. He just…he wasn’t. He _couldn’t be_.

“The w-water is freezing,” Mac stated, releasing his tenuous grip on the mylar blanket, and reaching for Jack’s arms. Jack felt the bone-rattling shaking of his limbs through the thick dive suit.

“I’ll g-go into d-deep hypothermia. My b-blood’ll go like…unnhh,” Mac shuddered, his fingers curling into fists, arms pulling Jack closer as pain gripped his expression, “like ice water.”

“No, Mac.” Jack was shaking his head, watching with growing dread as Mac accepted his own reasoning.

“My b-body systems will slow d-down—they won’t stop.”

“Mac—”

“You c-can tow me b-back,” Mac said, moving closer to Jack as the water hit his wound. Another wave of pain cut through his expression and he groaned but didn’t take his eyes from Jack’s face. “I s-saw defib equipment in th-the l-lab,” he continued. “I can be revived after maybe ten or…or f-fifteen…ten or fifteen minutes.”

Jack shook his head. He could hear Mac’s teeth chattering over the sound of the water rushing into what had become their prison. Their tomb.

“No way in hell, Mac.”

“It m-makes the most s-sense,” Mac argued.

“You’re nuts, you think _this_ makes sense!” Jack shouted, his vision almost whiting out from the thought of this. There was another way. There was always another way. “We’ll just…pass the oxygen tank between us.”

“I’ll f-freeze before we get t-ten feet outside the sub,” Mac shook his head.

Jack started to reach for the fasteners on the dive suit. “Here, then, you put this on—”

“Stop! S-stop!” Mac grabbed his hands. “If you’ll be logical f-for just one second—”

“Oh, _fuck_ logic!” Jack yelled.

He yanked his hands out of Mac’s grip but paused when he saw Mac’s eyes roll closed and his body curl inward. He looked down at the water now up to their mid-chests and saw it was swirled with blood from Mac’s side. Mac’s head slumped forward, his forehead resting on Jack’s shoulder.

Jack held him close—close enough that even through his dive suit, through the frigid water, he could feel their hearts racing, a panicked sprint away from a seemingly inevitable conclusion.

Mac simply trembled against him for a moment before he pulled his head slowly upright, staring right at Jack.

“I’ll do it,” Jack tried, his voice thin, trembling.

Mac shook his head. In the back of his mind, Jack knew there wouldn’t be time to change the dive suit from him to Mac before the chamber filled with water, but he had to try. He _had to_ ….

He started to reach for the fasteners one more time when Mac’s trembling hand closed over his.

“Please, Jack,” Mac whispered, his eyes pinning Jack’s with a kind of quiet desperation that sucked the air from the room. “ _Please_ …this…d-don’t make me…l-live through it twice.”

 _Zoe_.

And Jack felt his heart break. A fissure split right through him. He held Mac close, unable to warm him up, unable to stop his shaking, unable to slow the bleeding, unable to stop him from dying.

“It’s the o-only way,” Mac said, his voice holding slightly more weight the long Jack went without replying. “You know I’m r-right. They’ve g-got all the s-stuff up there to d-do this.”

Jack felt a fist close at the base of his throat. “Mac, I _can’t_ …,” his eyes burned, his chest tightened. “Don’t ask me to do this, man.” His breath hitched, caught, shook. “There’s no me if there’s no you.”

“You _can_ d-do this, Jack,” Mac shook Jack’s shoulders slightly. “You can s-save me.”

He was shivering hard, frighteningly pale and the water around them was dark with his blood, but Jack had never seen Mac’s eyes clearer, more convinced. More determined.

“This is insane.”

Mac nodded, his trembling lips tipping up slightly, sorrow riding the back of regret in his expression. “I know. But it’s th-the only w-way.”

He wasn’t going to make it much longer, that much was clear. Jack reached his cold hand to the back of Mac’s neck, gripping the shuddering muscles there, and pulled the kid’s forehead to his.

How was _this_ their only way?

“Don’t you fucking leave me,” Jack whispered. “You fight. _Promise_ me.”

“I w-will,” Mac promised, his shaking hands reaching for the edge of Jack’s dive suit, the backs of his ice-cold fingers curling against Jack’s throat as they gripped, seeking warmth, contact. “I sw-swear.”

Jack pulled his head up. “Fine, how do I—”

“Helmet,” Mac looked over at the deep-dive helmet. “P-put it on. I’ll h-hook up your air.”

Mac fumbled the oxygen tank, his hands clumsy with cold, but managed to get it connected to Jack’s intake valve just as Jack pulled the helmet down. Together they clicked the fasteners and Mac turned the valve. In seconds, Jack felt the oxygen fill his helmet and he grabbed a quick breath.

The water was up to his neck by that time and Mac held on to his shoulders, his head back as he kept his face upright. His hands were scrambling for purchase on the smooth surface of Jack’s dive suit, unable to hold on through the bitter cold that permeated his body.

“I’m here, Mac,” Jack shouted through the helmet. “I’m right here, bud.”

Mac’s legs kicked as he searched for air at the domed top of the DSV.

 _Oh, God, I can’t do this…I_ can’t do _this,_ Jack thought desperately as he turned on the headlamp of his helmet, the beam shining on the black of Mac’s sweatshirt.

His hands were freezing; he was afraid he’d lose his grip on Mac.

He swirled the water until he found the mylar blanket Mac had discarded. Twisting it into a rope, he wrapped it around Mac’s upper chest, just beneath his shoulders, and tied one end off, then fastened the other to his suit. When he looked up, he realized the water had closed over his helmet and Mac had instinctively swam to the top of the compartment, his head tipped back, his mouth to the last of the air.

“I’m right here, kid,” Jack shouted, tears choking him. “We’re doing this together.”

“J-Jack,” he heard Mac’s voice crack in the space above him. “ _God_ , J-Jack…I’m sc-scared!”

He held onto Mac’s hips, feeling the younger man’s body tremble, and then suddenly Mac was submerged, his face once more in front of him, his blue eyes holding that _knowing_ again.

That horrible acceptance.

The trust that Jack would bring him back.

And then before Jack was ready, Mac’s body bucked. Fighting with the biological instinct to _live_. To grab for air. He bucked once more, and Jack tightened his grip, eyes on Mac’s face—his mouth opened and the last of his air escaped, his neck arching back, his muscles shivering and shaking in Jack’s grip.

He trembled, body bucking once again, his hands flexing, reaching, and then…nothing.

No tremble, no thrum of life. Just…stillness.

Jack was screaming before he was truly aware of anything beyond _pain_ , blinking through a haze of anguish as the sound of his heart shattering seemed to echo within the confines of the dive helmet.

He pulled Mac to him, clutching his cold, limp body and screamed to no one and nothing until the tears in his throat were streaming down his face and his breath was fogging the inside of his helmet.

_Stop. You have to save him. Get your ass moving._

“I gotcha,” he panted, pivoting toward the upper hatch. “I gotcha, kid. I gotcha, Mac.”

He released Mac for a moment as he twisted the hatch open, then pulled himself through and gathered Mac close again. His body hummed with exhaustion; bruises gained in the recent battle fighting to pull him down, cracked ribs stabbing him with each breath.

But Jack fought with everything in him toward the surface, Mac clutched to him in a desperate, determined embrace.

He was not going to lose this kid. Not now. Not when he’d just gotten him back.

His heart beat a new rhythm, the only rhythm: save him.

_Save him, save him, save him._

His breath picked up speed and blurred his vision, his head spinning with the unregulated oxygen, but he forced himself to get control. He couldn’t afford to pass out now. He had to get to the top, get Mac to the top, bring him back.

_Save him, save him, save him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** I know, I know. This is a cruel way to end a chapter. I hope you'll forgive me when you've finished the next chapter. Also, thanks to **IceQueen1** (disappearinginq) for reminding me that the 'best' part of _House of Wax_ was Paris Hilton.
> 
> Lastly, the Russian spoken in this chapter is straight up Google translate and 75% curse words. Still, if you're curious, here you go:
> 
> _Otvali – Fuck off  
>  Chush' sobach'ya - Bullshit  
> Mudak - Asshole  
> Khvatit etogo – Enough of this  
> Prosto strelyay v nikh – Just shoot them_


	6. Chapter 6

**PART SIX**

**Jack**   
_NOAA ship, Zephyr, the North Atlantic  
Sunday night_

The lights from the _Zephyr’s_ dive pool beckoned Jack forward. He pushed himself, kicking hard, his free arm sweeping out to the side. _Breathe like Darth Vader_ , he told himself, fighting to keep himself present, the precious cargo in his grip the only thing that mattered. He reached the opening, his vision blurring as he surfaced.

“Hey!” he shouted, knowing his comms were off, knowing his voice was muted within his helmet, but needing someone to _hear him_. “Hey! Help!”

Mac’s face was still in the water as Jack swam for the edge of the dive pool. A figure darted forward just as he reached the edge, his freezing hands slipping as they tried to grasp the side. He didn’t bother to check if it was friend or foe, he simply thrust Mac’s limp form forward. Hands grabbed for Mac’s shoulders, pulling him from Jack’s grip. The moment his arms were free of the weight, Jack felt himself sinking, his breath coming in short, rapid bursts, pain stabbing at his shoulders, his chest.

The mylar rope he’d fashioned pulled taut the minute his helmet slipped under the water and hands were now grabbing for him, pulling him up and out of the water. Someone was removing his helmet and an oxygen mask was pressed against his face, the sweet, sweet taste of pure oxygen slipping into his senses.

Blinking blurring vision, Jack rasped, “Help him.” He saw Kiwanuka’s dark eyes and Mouse’s curly hair, but beyond that he couldn’t really identify anything beyond Mac.

“Mouse!” Kiwanuka barked. “Get the defib, the med kit, and as many warming blankets as you can find.”

Jack struggled to his knees but was pushed back.

“Get this suit off and keep that oxygen on,” Kiwanuka ordered him. He felt a slap of fingers against his cheek, sharp and stinging. “Dalton! You read me?”

Jack nodded.

“Help him, please,” he gasped, keeping one trembling hand on the oxygen mask as his eyes found Mac’s limp body sprawled near him, completely still. He was so pale, his parted lips blue, his lashes splayed across purpled skin beneath his closed eyes.

Without bothering to reply, Kiwanuka turned away from him and pulled out a switchblade from his pocket, slicing open the front of Mac’s soaked sweatshirt. The gauze wrapping around Mac’s mid-section was saturated and pulled away from the wound, so he sliced that free as well, exposing the wound which, Jack saw with a jolt of fear, wasn’t bleeding any longer.

“The defibrillator is charging,” Mouse said suddenly, dropping down on the other side of Jack next to Mac.

“Jesus, kid,” Kiwanuka breathed, deft fingers pressing against Mac’s pale throat. “What the hell did you do?”

“It…it was the only way,” Jack rasped from behind the oxygen mask.

“Get him out of that dive suit,” Kiwanuka ordered Mouse without looking over at them. As Jack watched, he tipped Mac’s head back, then put a breather over Mac’s blue lips, pumping the bag as he waited for the defibrillator to fully charge. “And get him wrapped in a warming blanket. Especially his hands.”

“Understood,” Mouse nodded, and Jack suddenly found the young genius’s eyes trained on him.

“Don’t tell me this won’t work,” Jack rasped, feeling his lips and jaw shake with adrenalin and emotion.

“The odds are irrelevant,” Mouse replied, removing the top half of the dive suit, and helping Jack to his feet.

Jack watched as Kiwanuka placed the electrode leads on Mac’s bare chest, one just below the scar from the bullet wound at Lake Como, one against his rib cage above the garish wound and turned the dial.

“Clear!” Kiwanuka shouted, pulling the breathing mask free and lifting his hands.

Jack froze as electricity shot through Mac’s body, bowing his back away from the cold, steel floor, and then dropping him flat. The flat line on the monitor seemed to pierce through his own heart.

“Charging,” Kiwanuka reported as Jack stepped free of the dive suit, now clad in only his thermals and socks, the warming blanket wrapped around him, the pins and needles sensation of feeling slowly returning to his hands.

He couldn’t pull his eyes from Mac’s slack face.

“C’mon, kid,” he muttered, sinking to his knees next to Mac, Mouse close to his side.

“Clear!” Kiwanuka called again, and Mac’s body bowed upward again, dropping back. The high-pitched whine from the defibrillator indicated no heartbeat.

“ _C’mon_ , Mac,” Jack said, reaching for Mac’s cold, limp hand. “Fight this.”

“Administering epinephrine,” Kiwanuka stated.

Jack didn’t even question him. He couldn’t. The only thing that mattered now was seeing Mac take a breath.

“You can do this, kid,” Jack gripped Mac’s hand. “C’mon.”

Kiwanuka inserted a needle into Mac’s chest, and they both shot a look to the defibrillator, hoping for the adrenaline to jump-start Mac’s heart. When the whine continued, Kiwanuka cranked the dial, charging it higher, then applied the breather.

“C’mon, Mac,” Jack drew up to his knees.

“Clear!” Kiwanuka barked, backing off.

Jack dropped Mac’s hand and watched as Mac’s body bucked with the charge, reminding him harshly of how it felt to hold him as he drowned.

“Dalton….” Kiwanuka started.

“NO!” Jack snapped, tossing his oxygen mask aside. “He said ten or fifteen minutes.”

“He’s taken three charges, man.”

_“No!”_ Jack pushed Kiwanuka back and dropped the warming blanket. “He’s a fighter. You don’t know this kid. He _wants_ to live.”

“Jack—” Kiwanuka reached tentatively for Jack’s shoulder and Jack smacked his hand back, leaning over Mac.

“You don’t do this!” Jack shouted at Mac, folding his hands, and placing them on Mac’s freezing skin. He began compressions with rapid, heavy thrusts. “You promised you’d fight, man, now you goddamn well better _fight_!”

He sealed his mouth over Mac’s, ignoring how cold his skin felt, and breathed in two hefty breaths, before returning to compressions. His head spun in retaliation of his own lack of oxygen, but he ignored it, moving back into position over Mac’s chest.

“I didn’t watch over you all this time just to lose you now,” Jack gasped, mindful of Mouse moving next to him to take up the breathing as he stopped compressions.

Mouse breathed two deep breaths into Mac, and Kiwanuka pressed two fingers against Mac’s throat, then shook his head.

“God _dammit_ ,” Jack growled, beginning compressions once more. “You are the goddamn stubbornest person I have ever met in my life—you _fight this_!” He didn’t let Mouse breath once more—instead, he grabbed Mac’s shoulders, shaking him hard, Mac’s head lolling on a loose neck. He released him, Mac slumping on the deck, mouth slack. “I _can’t_ lose you….”

“Jack,” Kiwanuka tried again. Jack wrenched his arm out of the other man’s gentle grasp. “He’s gone, man.”

“No!” Jack heard his voice break. “He’s too _strong_ to go like this. He _wants_ to live.”

Mouse sank back on his heels, wrapping his arms around himself. Kiwanuka reached for the defibrillator leads, but Jack stopped him.

“Shock him again.”

“Jack—”

_“Do it!_ Shock him again.”

Kiwanuka took a breath. “Charging.”

Jack grabbed the plastic breather and placed it over Mac’s nose and mouth, pressing air into his water-logged lungs.

“Clear!”

Jack pulled away and watched Mac’s body arch and drop, fully prepared to take up compressions once more when suddenly the whine of the defibrillator hitched, and they all stared at the blip on the readout.

“That’s it, Mac,” Jack encouraged, pressing the breather over his nose and mouth again. “C’mon back to me, kid. You got this, c’mon. Just one easy breath.”

And then Mac was choking, coughing, water splashing up against the mask. Jack collected him and turned him to his side in rescue position as he vomited seawater onto the deck, the monitor beeping a staccato rhythm.

“There you go,” Jack encouraged, one hand on Mac’s back, the other on his shoulder as Mac coughed and spat out seawater, dragging in gulps of air then coughing again. “I knew you wouldn’t leave me here alone,” Jack sobbed, pressing his forehead against Mac’s cold, bare shoulder, keeping the younger man propped up as his coughs subsided and his breathing picked up.

“I…I can’t believe it,” Kiwanuka breathed, emotion turning his voice thick.

“The odds are irrelevant,” Mouse repeated, softly.

“Easy, there you go,” Jack just crooned as he put the oxygen mask Mouse had given him over Mac’s nose and mouth. “Just breathe, Mac. You got this.”

The raspy inhales and shuddering exhales were the most beautiful sounds Jack had ever heard.

“Mouse,” Kiwanuka called. “Get the warming blankets on him. We gotta get him out of these wet clothes and get his core temp up.” He pushed up to his knees, reaching for the defibrillator leads and pulling them from Mac’s skin. “Let’s get him away from the water.”

Jack crouched, his legs tremble beneath him, but leaned over and with Kiwanuka’s help, pulled Mac into his arms. He stood, staggered to the side, and allowed Kiwanuka to collect Mac’s legs so that he was carrying Mac’s head and shoulders, the soaked sweatshirt falling from Mac’s limp arms with a heavy _splat_ to the ship floor. Mouse placed the small oxygen tank on Mac’s belly, then turned to grab up the blankets and med kit.

“Where?” Jack gasped.

“Your bunk, c’mon,” Kiwanuka pivoted on his heel and led the way as they hurried, Mac’s arms flopping limply to the sides, his head bouncing loosely against Jack’s shoulder.

They made their way into the narrow bunk room and lay Mac down on the bottom bunk, immediately moving to pull his remaining wet clothes from his ice-cold skin. Without worrying about modesty, he reached up and grabbed the blanket from the top bunk and used it to rub Mac’s skin dry, helping Mouse wrap Mac head to toe in the warming blankets, positioning the oxygen tank on the floor next to Mac’s head.

With Kiwanuka’s help, they wrapped Mac in the warming blankets Mouse had brought, cocooning him completely until only his face was exposed, the oxygen mask covering his too-pale skin, his lips slowly losing the terrifying blue color.

“Go get some warm clothes on,” Kiwanuka instructed. “I’ll get him hooked up to warm saline.”

Jack shook his head once, his hands resting on Mac’s chest and shoulder. “I ain’t leaving him.”

“You’re shaking,” Mouse pointed out. “And your skin is an unhealthy shade.”

Jack couldn’t tear his eyes from Mac’s face, counting the seconds between each moment the oxygen mask fogged up. He couldn’t get the image of Mac’s blue eyes staring at him with the knowledge of what he was risking, the faith that Jack would bring him back, from his mind.

_Please…don’t make me live through it twice._

His heart shook. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath.

Kiwanuka’s hand rested on his shoulder. “Dalton,” he called softly. “I got him. Take a minute. Go get some warm clothes on.”

Jack swallowed hard, dragging his eyes from Mac’s pale face to Kiwanuka’s dark eyes. The Asian man nodded solemnly.

“I got him.”

Jack blinked. “He’s got a wound—”

“I saw it,” Kiwanuka interrupted, squeezing Jack’s shoulder. “Just, go get changed and warmed up.”

Jack nodded, knowing he wasn’t going to be any good to Mac if he collapsed as well. “There’s a med kit there, next to the laptop.”

Kiwanuka turned and grabbed the white box, dropping down to his knees next to the bunk and the cocooned shape lying on top of it. Grabbing his go-bag, Jack ducked into the small bathroom and shut the door. Dropping the bag on the floor, he leaned trembling hands on the edges of the small sink, and hung his head forward on tense neck muscles, his forehead pressing against the mirror.

He could feel himself shaking from the inside out, the grip on the sink the only thing keeping him on his feet. His breath hitched in helpless sobs; his body felt as though someone had scooped out his insides, twisted them into a tangled mess, then stuffed them back into him, hoping for the best.

“Son of a bitch,” he whispered, tears catching on the ends of his words and spilling in hot tracks down his cheeks.

For one moment, he couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He could barely breathe.

He could only stand and shake and cry.

“Jack!” Kiwanuka called.

“Yeah!” He yelled back, the word strangled and anemic. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

He hurriedly splashed water on his face, then changed into new thermals, a pair of heavy, black cargo pants, and a long-sleeved white T-shirt. Heavy socks and boots in his hands, he stepped out of the bathroom not one minute later.

Mac hadn’t moved, but now he could see that Kiwanuka had managed to start an IV in the back of one hand and hang a bag of saline which, when Jack touched it on his way past, was definitely warm. The warming blankets were still wrapped around Mac—even his wet hair was covered—but his side was exposed. The wound was red and raw and gaping, and Jack felt his stomach clench at the sight.

“The warmer he gets, the more blood he’s losing,” Kiwanuka stated. “We need to seal this up. Found this in your kit, which is more than we had,” he held a wound stapler in his hand, poised over Mac’s side, his posture unsure and hesitant.

“I can handle it,” Jack replied, dropping a hand on the botanist’s shoulder. “I’ve stitched him up plenty of times before.”

Kiwanuka shot him a look, then moved to the side, allowing Jack to sit where he’d been perched next to Mac.

“I damn sure misjudged you both,” Kiwanuka said softly.

“Yeah, well,” Jack lifted a shoulder and took wound stapler from Kiwanuka’s outstretched hand, “he gets that a lot.”

“Not you, huh?”

Jack huffed in response. “I’m pretty much, what you see is what you get.”

He took the warm, wet rag from Mouse and cleaned as much of the blood from Mac’s side as he could, then collected the disinfecting wipes that Mouse handed him and carefully dabbed the edges of torn skin, sucking on his teeth in imagined pain, though Mac didn’t so much as flinch.

“I see a father,” Mouse said softly.

Jack’s hands jerked at that, and he looked up to see the solemn brown eyes regarding him steadily without a trace of guile. His heart trembled in the cage that was his chest, seeking solid ground and finding none.

“Yeah, uh…,” Jack said quietly as he positioned the stapler. “He’s not really had much luck in that department.”

Kiwanuka grabbed the desk lamp, turned it on, and pointed the light directly at Mac’s side. He and Jack both hissed in sympathy as the garish wound was exposed. Jack reached into the med kit and pulled out a small vial of lidocaine. He set the stapler on top of Mac’s chest, digging around more until he found two ampules of morphine.

“Don’t want to do this without some kind of pain meds,” Jack lamented, “but I’m scared to death to slow his heart.”

Kiwanuka nodded. “As messed up as this sounds, you’re better off with just the local until we’re sure he’s not going to crash on us.”

Wincing, Jack nodded, then readied the lidocaine and injected the local around one side of the wound. “Don’t have enough of this stuff for the whole thing,” he muttered. “As much as I want him to wake up,” he glanced up at Mac’s pale, slack face, his lips trembling with breath beneath the oxygen mask, “I hope he stays out for this.”

“Ditto,” Kiwanuka whispered.

“Gotta ask…how’d you know to do all this?” Jack nodded toward Mac, thinking of the botanists handling of the defibrillator, the epinephrine.

“Experiences of a misspent youth,” Kiwanuka revealed. “Spent eight years as a lifeguard in Santa Monica.”

“That’ll do it.”

“How’d this happen?” Kiwanuka asked.

“Damn pirates and their fucking harpoon rifles,” Jack muttered, pressing the swollen skin as closed as he could and pressing a staple in place. “Speaking of…suppose it’s too much to hope that they’re all dead?”

“They have the Captain and G,” Mouse reported. “G’s trapped in the radio room. It’s unclear where Captain Dreymon is.”

Jack glanced up at Kiwanuka. “Huron? Amber?”

Kiwanuka nodded. “They’re okay, but they’re in the radio room, too.”

“Guess our heroic escape with the non-existent uranium didn’t really solve our problems, huh?”

Mac groaned and rolled his head slowly, not opening his eyes. Jack paused his stapling, but when Mac didn’t make another noise, he continued to seal the wound as best he could.

“He’s shivering,” Jack said softly as he pressed the largest point of the wound closed.

Kiwanuka’s hand moved into Jack’s line of sight, pressing gently against Mac’s jugular. “That’s a good sign,” he replied. “Means he’s starting to warm up. His pulse is crazy fast, but I’ll take that over what it was before.”

Jack’s eyebrows bounced up in agreement, wiping some more blood away as he tried to keep Mac’s skin together.

“I’d tracked the kid here up into the vents,” Kiwanuka continued. “Tried for a distraction with a ship-wide announcement. By the time I got back, Dolly was gone, Roberts had rounded up our crew and marched them to the radio room, and one of the whitest guys I’ve ever seen was holding a gun on Doc Azar.”

“Yeah,” Jack let the corner of his mouth pull up in a smirk. “That’s probably because I shot the bastard.”

“Jack….” Mac’s voice was like crushed glass, his breath fogging the interior of the oxygen mask.

Jack reached forward, laying the flat of his palm against the side of Mac’s face, relieved to feel some warmth there after the icy chill from earlier.

“I’m here, kid,” Jack said, letting his hand stay as Mac rolled his head toward the touch. “Just rest easy, Mac.”

“Nnnngggh,” Mac groaned, one hand moving clumsily beneath the blankets. “Hurts.”

“Yeah, you’re pretty busted up, Hoss,” Jack responded. He looked down at Mac’s side. He still had a few more staples to go. “Hang in there for me.”

Mac didn’t reply; Jack gently removed his hand, watching as Mac’s brows pulled low over the bridge of his nose. He moved back to the wound on Mac’s side, carefully placing another staple, freezing as Mac tensed, a sharp intake of breath a clear indication that Mac was much more aware.

“Easy,” Jack crooned. “Just breathe, Mac. I’m almost done, bud.”

He placed another staple and Mac flinched, his skin shuddering at the touch, his body tensing. Two more staples and Jack decided to call it good, reaching for the gauze patch and a roll of bandages. He placed the patch over the staples and took the medical tape from Kiwanuka to secure it in place, then shifted so that the botanist could unwrap the blankets from around Mac enough that Jack could wrap the bandage around his waist, both moving as quickly as possible to bundle Mac back up the moment his shivers increased.

“Nothing to it,” Jack said, feeling emotion shudder through him. He rubbed at his chest, feeling a stabbing sensation into his shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” Kiwanuka asked.

Jack frowned, shaking his head. “It’s nothing. Just old, man.”

“Decompression,” Mouse chimed in. “An imbalance of nitrogen and oxygen in your bloodstream.”

Jack blinked at him. “You mean, like the bends?”

“Not quite that extreme, but…yeah, basically,” Kiwanuka nodded, lifting his chin in Mouse’s direction. “Just need you to be on oxygen for a bit is all.”

“Thought there was like…internal combustion or something like that,” Jack frowned, watching as Mouse darted out of the room for a moment, returning with oxygen and a nasal cannula.

“That is only in extreme circumstances,” Mouse told him. He handed him the nasal cannula. “Sorry. We’re out of masks.”

Jack shook his head and took the offered tubing, sliding it into place and settling back against the bunk frame, one hand on Mac’s knee, his eyes pinned to his partner’s face. He ignored the ache in his joints, the pain of a cracked rib or two, the headache building behind his eyes. He ignored the tremble he could feel building in his chest.

His whole world was the kid wrapped in blankets on that bunk, breathing. Miraculously _breathing_.

“How long you think we got until Roberts realizes he’s four people short?” Jack asked.

A low groan from Mac interrupted anything Kiwanuka was about to offer in response. Jack sat forward, his hand moving to rest gently on Mac’s chest.

“Hey, brother,” he called. “Feel like opening your eyes for me?”

Mac blinked slowly; his lashes seemingly fused together. Jack blocked out the fears crowding his perception like a hand at his throat: the lack of oxygen, the frigid water, the electric shock to bring him back…all of them could work together to damage Mac’s brain, could keep him from coming back at all.

“Easy, kiddo,” Jack soothed as he saw Mac’s eyes flutter, fighting the weight of unconsciousness, seeking awareness.

Mac shuddered beneath his hand, his eyes rolling restlessly beneath his closed lids.

_Please_ , Jack found himself breathing a prayer for the first time in years. _Please_ _come back. Please be you. Please don’t leave me_.

After several minutes where it seemed Mac might sink back into oblivion, his blue eyes opened and then Mac was staring up at him, shaking like a leaf, and _God_ if it wasn’t one of the single greatest things Jack had ever seen.

“There he is,” Jack smiled, feeling his entire body unclench for a moment.

“Jack?” Mac groaned out, his voice muted and echoing within the confines of the mask.

Jack reached up and pushed the blanket back from Mac’s now-dry hair, shoving his fingers gently through the tangled blond. “Right here, bud.”

Mac blinked at him a few more times, eyes clearing as he focused. For several heartbeats, he simply stared up at him. Jack didn’t know if Mac was aware of where they were, what had happened to him, what Jack had done to him.

He took a breath, trying to think how to test the cognition of a genius who’d been brought back to life when Mac finally spoke.

“Told you it would work,” he whispered.

Jack let loose a helpless laugh, tears that had been lurking in the wings flinging themselves to the surface and tumbling with abandon down Jack’s cheeks. He leaned forward and carefully pulling Mac up to him, cradling his trembling body in a hug, cupping the back of Mac’s head. Mac’s arms were trapped within the blankets, but he tipped his head forward to rest on Jack’s shoulder, leaning into the embrace and simply letting Jack hold him and cry.

“You’re crazy, you know that?” Jack sniffed. “Goddamn certifiable.”

“You did it,” Mac pointed out, his voice a low rasp. “Saved me.”

Jack huffed again, wrapping his arms tighter around Mac’s shoulders and back. He didn’t want to let him go—the feeling of Mac alive and breathing was intoxicating. He’d always known in their line of work the chances of one of them not coming back was high.

But this…this was too close. Too _real_.

“I felt you _die_ , Mac. Right here. Right here in my arms,” he choked out.

“’m sorry, Jack,” Mac said, his voice trembling. “’m sorry.”

“I always figured it’d be me,” Jack said, slowly releasing Mac and easing him back down on the bunk, then dragging his hand down his face, attempting the banish the tears. “We’ve been playing with house money since Cairo, bud. Knew it’d run out soon or later…just…just figured it’d be me.”

Mac was watching him, his blue eyes bright with pain, tears balanced on his lashes.

“’m glad it wasn’t,” he whispered.

_Please…don’t make me live through it twice._

Jack thought about Mac having to be alone in that sub, feeling Jack spasm with his last breathes, hauling Jack’s lifeless body through the black of the ocean, and he shuddered with the knowledge of how painful that would be for the other man. No matter what Mac had gone through with Zoe, Jack never wanted the kid to have to experience that. Not a loss like that.

And he’d do everything in his power to keep something like that from happening, no matter how expendable Mac seemed to consider himself.

He brushed Mac’s hair from his forehead. “How you feeling, huh?”

“Like shit,” Mac answered honestly, his eyes shifting sluggishly over Jack’s shoulder to Kiwanuka, then rolling his head to meet Mouse’s eyes. “What’d you guys do to me?”

“Shocked your heart with approximately 4,000 volts of electricity, injected you with 5 milligrams of epinephrine, and applied enough thrust during CPR to crack the cartilage around your sternum,” Mouse replied.

Mac blinked slowly back up at Jack. “Is that all?”

Jack felt his mouth relax into a soft grin. “You’re gonna be feeling this for a while, kid.”

“Yeah,” Mac’s hand moved beneath the blanket, rubbing at his chest. “I can tell.” He coughed roughly into the oxygen mask, a deep, chesty sound that had Jack frowning. When he caught his breath, his eyes slid over to Kiwanuka. “The pirates gone?”

Kiwanuka chuffed a laugh and Jack looked over to see the man shoving his hands through his dark hair. “I’m just…I’m amazed you’re even talking to me right now, man. Do you realize what your body has gone through in the last few hours?”

Mac simply looked at him, a weariness Jack rarely saw drawing lines around his eyes. “They don’t call me Boy Wonder for nothing,” he rasped.

Jack grinned at him, resting his hand against Mac’s neck, for nothing else but to have connection.

“Pirates are still here. They’ve got the crew and our people trapped in the ship’s radio room,” Kiwanuka replied.

Mac swallowed and leaned into Jack’s hand, drawing his attention. “Can we call Matty?”

Jack glanced over at their laptop. “They’re probably monitoring comms.”

“Comms are out,” Kiwanuka replied. “We tried to raise Huron and G,” he shook his head. “Nothing.”

“If we _were_ able to get a signal to our people in the radio room,” Jack said, thinking aloud, “think they could get a message out to the Phoenix using the ship’s satellite?”

“Sure,” Kiwanuka nodded. “But…how do you get a signal to them without alerting Roberts and the Brute Squad?”

“I have a way into the radio room,” Mouse spoke up, his fingers bouncing along the edges of his jeans in that same, familiar rhythm.

“Of course, you do,” Jack and Kiwanuka commented in unison.

“Think we can get our comms working, just between us four?” Jack asked, looking at Mouse.

As the young man tilted his head in thought, Mac spoke up. “I can.”

“You just lay here and get warm,” Jack shook his head, frowning at his partner. “Literally your only job right now is to keep breathing.”

“I can help, Jack,” Mac protested, coughing roughly, then dropping his head back with a gasp. “Please.”

Jack gripped both hands at Mac’s neck, pulling his blue eyes front and center. “I need you _here_ , kid. I need you with me.”

“I’m with you,” Mac said. “I promise.”

Jack stared at him, his eyes burning. “You got hit a lot harder than I think you realize, Mac.”

“It ain’t about how hard you hit,” Mouse suddenly spoke up, drawing Jack’s eyes in surprise. “It’s about how hard you get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward.” His brown eyes darted between Jack and Mac. “That’s how winning is done.”

Mac smiled slightly beneath the oxygen mask.

“Dude,” Jack drew his head back. “Did you just quote _Rocky_?”

“It seemed fitting,” Mouse replied. He shrugged, “Mac’s not going to get better without help. And if he can get us that help sooner, isn’t it in our best interest to let him?”

Mac gently pressed his head into Jack’s touch once more. “Hard to argue with that kind of logic,” he offered.

“You and your logic,” Jack muttered, then straightened up. “Told you to ignore that Spock side of you.” He took a breath. “Okay, fine, but we do this thing _my way_ , capiche?” He scanned the room locking eyes with each person and gaining their nod.

“Help me up,” Mac asked, clearing his throat. “I can take a look—”

“Hold up,” Kiwanuka raised his hand. “First, we get you in warm clothes and get some fuel into both of you.” He looked at Jack. “We do it your way, but if you pass out on us, we’re all screwed.”

“Copy,” Jack nodded. “I’ll help Mac get dressed—you to find us some grub,” he paused, “and anything we can use as a weapon.”

Kiwanuka and Mouse nodded, then headed out of the room.

“Let’s do this in phases,” Jack suggested.

Mac nodded, looking as if that was all he had strength for in the moment. As Jack reached to help him free his arms, he saw Mac’s eyes begin to flutter closed, his head lolling to the side.

“Whoa, whoa, hey,” Jack patted Mac’s cheek, cupping his head. “Hey, none of that now, Mac. C’mon.”

Mac blinked aware, staring at Jack with glazed eyes.

“There you are, you okay?”

Mac swallowed hard. “Think so.”

Jack checked the small, portable oxygen tank and saw it was nearly empty. “Hang on a sec,” he said, detaching Mac’s tank and replacing it with the small one that had been tucked into the med kit he’d insisted they bring from the Phoenix. Turning the valve full open, he sank back to the bunk. “Nothing like some fresh O2,” he smiled, brushing Mac’s hair from his face, and checking his eyes.

He was staring back at him, once more looking determined to save the world.

“You ready to try sitting up?”

Mac nodded and Jack moved slowly, freeing his arms from the warming blankets, then easing him upright so that his back was propped against the wall, the blankets still wrapped around him, his hands free.

The warmed saline was nearly empty, so Jack removed the needle and taped a cotton ball over the insertion point on the back of Mac’s hand.

“You okay, Jack?” Mac asked, looking at the nasal cannula on Jack’s face.

Jack tugged it down, silently acknowledging that he would most likely regret it, but unable to move easily with it on.

“Yeah, I’m okay, bud,” he smiled down at Mac. “Just needed some extra O2. You ready to get into some warm clothes?”

Mac lifted his chin as though to nod but stopped. “I was really scared, man.”

His blue eyes flooded, the tears held at bay, chin trembling beneath the oxygen mask.

“I was scared, too, Hoss,” Jack confessed in a thin breath. “Never been that scared before.”

“Every time before,” Mac continued, his breath hitching, a tear spilling free and tracking down his cheek and sliding around the edge of the mask, “seemed like it was…it was both of us. Or…or it was you. Like in that armored car, you remember?”

“Not likely to forget something like that.”

“Somewhere along the way, I started…to, uh,” he reached up, pulling the oxygen mask free as he sniffed. Jack let him, know from experience how hard it was to breathe through emotion with one of those in place. “I started to imagine dying. On missions.”

Jack sat back, surprised. He’d never known this; Mac was a rock. Steady, steadfast, sure. His only tell that of his paperclip figures. The idea that he’d thought of dying….

“And the thing was,” Mac continued, dropping his head back against the wall, eyes on the underside of the bunk above, tears drawing tracks on his skin, “every time…every time I pictured it…I was alone.”

Jack swallowed hard.

“And in that sub…I could,” he cleared his throat, tugging the oxygen mask free and setting it aside, “I could feel you there…the pressure of your hands. I…I could…I could hear you. Calling to me.”

Jack felt his throat close as he watched tears make tracks down his pale cheeks.

“I knew I wasn’t alone, but…but I _felt_ alone. My face was pressed against the ceiling, and I was…trying to think of…of _anything_ other than that plan. Anything.” He dragged a hand down his face, dropping his arm in his lap. “But…when it happened, there at the end, I was still alone.”

“You’re not alone, Mac,” Jack whispered, his voice too choked with emotion to be any louder. “You go kaboom, I go kaboom.”

Mac nodded weakly. “I know, man.”

“I mean, it, kid,” Jack scooted forward, reaching out to gently pull Mac close to him with one arm, feeling the younger man huff out a breath that seemed caught between a groan and a sob. He let Mac reach up and wrap his arms around Jack’s side, before closing his other arm. “I’m right here. I’m not leaving you.”

Mac just nodded against Jack’s shoulder.

“Being scared is human, bud,” Jack said, rubbing Mac’s arm carefully. “Especially when it comes to what we just pulled off.”

“I knew you’d save me,” Mac whispered.

“Well,” Jack tipped his head. “I had help.”

“You swam all the way up to—” Mac stopped short, then pulled up abruptly, pausing with a hiss of pain as the movement caught him. He closed his eyes briefly and pressed the flat of one hand against his chest, then blinked over at Jack. “Decompression sickness,” he gasped. “That’s why the oxygen.”

Jack nodded. “I’m okay, though. Scout’s honor,” he held up three fingers.

Mac winced, leaning back, and closing his eyes. “My chest fucking hurts.”

“Bet your side don’t feel much better,” Jack commented, sliding off the bunk and going for Mac’s duffel.

“Can’t…really feel it right now,” Mac mumbled, his eyes staying closed. “Feel warmer, though. Guess that’s a good sign.”

“Just take it easy,” Jack said, pulling out layers of clothes and socks, then returning to the bunk. “No superhero shit.”

Mac opened one eye. “Roger that. Regular hero shit all the way.”

Jack raised an eyebrow at him, then frowned as Mac’s composure dissolved into a fit of rough coughing. He kept one arm wrapped around his middle, leaning forward as the coughing seemed to go on and on, wringing him out. Jack crouched near him and rested a hand on Mac’s knee as he fought to catch his breath.

Mac pushed himself up on a shaking arm, his lips trembling as he fought for air, eyes wide and scared, darting in panic around the room as his fought-for breath seemed to catch on his ribcage instead of inflating his lungs.

“Hey, hey,” Jack gripped his knee. “Eyes on me. Mac? Eyes on me. There you go.”

“Can’t…can’t….”

“You can breathe, you got this,” Jack stretched his shoulders up, taking a deep, slow breath. “C’mon, kid, your air is my air. See that?”

Mac gasped, nodding frantically, his eyes on Jack.

“Your air is my air,” Jack nodded, taking a slow breath again. “Breathe with me, okay? Together.”

Mac dragged in a slow breath, fighting to match his speed to Jack’s, slowing down the raspy catch of the coughing. Jack made him do it twice more, then reached for the oxygen mask.

“Let’s just keep this on for now, yeah?”

Mac nodded shakily. “Thanks.”

“Nothing to it, bud,” Jack smiled, resting his hand on the top of Mac’s head. “We got this.”

Easing Mac toward him and to the edge of the bunk, he helped him stand on trembling legs, keeping the blankets wrapped around him, then led him to the bathroom. Supporting him from behind, he helped Mac take care of his needs and wash up a bit, both chuckling at the wild array of hair tangled around his head.

Back at the bunk, Jack dressed Mac in layers, teasing him good naturedly that it was a bit like dressing a scarecrow as he prompted him to lift his arms or his legs, making sure he was thoroughly bundled. He winced, seeing the bruising on Mac’s chest from their efforts to revive him, the slowly growing red stain on the white bandage at his side, wanting nothing more than for him to be wrapped up in a bed in a hospital, safe and sound and with the good drugs and plenty of medical staff around him.

Instead, he was going to have to survive freaking _pirates_ before they could get him to real help.

“I’m okay, Jack,” Mac said softly from behind the oxygen mask, catching Jack frowning at the red showing through the gauze at Mac’s side as he helped him slide the long-sleeved t-shirt in place before grabbing his spare sweat shirt.

“You’re not, though, kid,” Jack shook his head. “You’re not.”

“I’ll _be_ okay,” Mac offered. “And you’re looking out for me, so.”

Jack smiled softly. “You bet your ass, I am.”

_I see a father…._

There’d always been a part of him that would have willingly taken on that responsibility. He may have been graduating high school when Mac was born, but he’d have been proud to have a kid like Mac, even though he never saw himself as much of a parent. Especially since Mac’s _actual_ father turned out to be such a massive disappointment.

“We can’t stay in here,” Mac said weakly, leaning heavily against the bedframe as Jack put on his own boots, then tied Mac’s.

“Bud,” Jack sighed, straightening up and marveling that Mac seemed to look even younger layered in warm clothes than he had simply wrapped in blankets. “There is nothing more I’d like than to tell you that you’re wrong and make you lie in this bunk until we get rid of these damn pirates,” he sighed and dropped his hands on his hips, “but unfortunately, I can’t.”

“’s okay,” Mac said, his eyes rolling closed, as a grimace of pain ghosted his features. “’m good.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jack replied. He checked the valve on the portable oxygen tank. “Looks like we tapped this one out, too, bud.”

Mac blinked his eyes open, lashes barely parting. “Was getting tired of the mask anyway,” he said, lifting his head so Jack could pull the mask from his face.

“I’ll bet,” Jack huffed, setting it next to the one he’d abandoned—which only had enough in it for about another ten minutes. Grabbing up their laptop, he reached down for Mac and let the younger man snake his arm around until it was across his shoulders. “You ready?”

“Let’s go take out some pirates,” Mac nodded, eyes on the door as they shuffled slowly forward.

It was slow going, and Jack felt Mac’s trembling increase the longer he was on his feet. As they neared the lab where Kiwanuka and Mouse waited, Mac began coughing once more. Jack paused, holding him steady until he was able to catch his breath. When they got to the lab, Jack saw Mouse had created a bit of a nest with blankets and pillows from their bunks, a stack of additional blankets nearby.

Mac gave him a weak smile. “Thanks, man.”

“I understand, now,” Mouse nodded as Jack helped ease Mac down into the nest and wrapped the blankets around him.

“Understand what?” Mac asked, clearing his throat.

“Why he doesn’t want to hear the odds,” Mouse elaborated, tilting his head toward Jack, but keeping his eyes on Mac. “He knows you don’t accept them.”

Jack noticed Mouse’s fingers sped up in their rhythm against his leg as he talked.

“You don’t accept the laws of the universe as they are laid out,” Mouse frowned slightly. “You select which laws are applicable to a particular situation, make them work for you, then discard the rest.”

Jack leaned against the map table, huffing out a laugh. “If that isn’t the best description of you, I’ve ever heard.”

Mac frowned slightly. “Makes me sound like I play God.”

“Just the opposite,” Mouse shook his head. “You accept that God gave us parameters and when those parameters don’t for your situation, you change the situation.”

Mac smiled softly. “You see a lot, don’t you?”

“Everyone sees a lot,” Mouse countered. “Not everyone pays attention.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Kiwanuka commented, clapping a hand on Mouse’s shoulder.

He handed Jack two protein bars and two bottles of Gatorade. Jack crouched down and opened the bottle of Gatorade and one of the protein bars, handing them one at a time to Mac. He noted the slight frown driving a shallow line between Mac’s brows.

“You need this, bud,” he said softly. “Especially the fluids.”

“Yeah, I know,” Mac sighed, lifting the bottle to his mouth with a shaking hand. He swallowed and cleared his throat. “Just…not all that hungry.”

“Give it a try in a bit, yeah?” Jack rested a hand on Mac’s head, then stood and began to inhale his protein bar.

Kiwanuka cleared his throat. “Also found this in Huron’s stuff,” he said, holding out a .38. “He’s not supposed to have this on board, so…maybe we don’t mention it when all is said and done?”

Jack took the pistol, checked the ammo, then slid it into his back waistband. “You still got that switchblade on you?”

Kiwanuka nodded, pulling it out of his pocket.

“Keep it,” Jack nodded at him. “Just in case.”

“Okay, so…,” Kiwanuka tilted his head in a move eerily similar to Mouse, “how are we going to do this?”

“You two still have your comms?” Jack asked.

Both Kiwanuka and Mouse nodded.

“Okay, that means we got three between the four of us, since the ocean took care of Mac’s.”

Mac looked at Kiwanuka. “You got any headsets?”

Kiwanuka nodded and darted out of the lab to where Huron’s equipment was, then came back and handed Mac a small Bluetooth headset. He asked for a small screwdriver, the rest of their comms, and his Swiss Army Knife. Luckily, Jack was able to help provide all supplies and they stood and watched as Mac opened up the back of the small comms and the headset, clipped some wires, re-routed others, and put it all back together again, sinking back against the blankets and pillows, exhaustion lining his face.

“There,” he said, closing his eyes briefly and clearing his throat. “We should all be connected to each other.”

They put the comms in, giving Mac the Bluetooth, and did a quick comms check.

“Impressive,” Mouse nodded.

“Thanks,” Mac smiled tiredly, but Jack saw the light of it hit his eyes.

“So, what’s the plan?” Kiwanuka asked.

Jack braced himself. Next up was the part he hated. He set their laptop down on the map table.

“Mouse and I go spring the team and the crew; you two stay here and when I say the word, you send up the Bat Signal to the Phoenix off the ship’s satellite.”

Kiwanuka nodded, but Mac tensed, leaning forward. Before he could say a word, Jack crouched down in front of him, a hand on his knee.

“Look, I know, okay? I know,” Jack shook his head. “But this is the best way—the only way.”

“Jack….” Mac’s eyes fluttered a bit once more and Jack tightened his grip on his knee, feeling tension wrap around his heart, until Mac was able to pull himself aware once more, blinking eyes wide, forcing himself to remain conscious.

“You asked me to trust your logic before—and it was a helluva lot scarier logic than this,” Jack pointed out. “I need you to trust me right now, Mac. I’ll get us out of this.”

“It’s not that,” Mac confessed, his deep voice hoarse and thin. He licked his lips. “It’s…I don’t want to…I can’t lose you.”

Jack felt a jolt in his heart at those words, as though he were moving around with shattered pieces of himself rattling inside like broken glass. He wanted to tell the younger man that he knew exactly how he felt right now—that his world just didn’t work without Mac in it, he’d _felt_ those words every day Mac had been gone.

But it was enough right now that Mac’s blue eyes stared at him, vulnerable and exposed. That he knew his was a shared need.

“You won’t,” Jack smiled softly. “I promise.”

Mac frowned and sat back, reluctantly acquiescing. Jack stood and turned to face Kiwanuka. The other man straightened up, meeting Jack’s gaze.

“I’ll watch out for your kid; you watch out for mine?” Jack asked.

Kiwanuka nodded. “You got it.”

“I uh,” he glanced back at Mac, seeing that he was once more leaning his head back against the wall, eyes closed. “I don’t like the sound of his breathing, man. That cough is roughing him up.”

Kiwanuka nodded. “I’ll watch for secondary drowning. That’s not uncommon in cases like this.”

Jack lifted an eyebrow. “You deal with a lot of deep-sea drowning and resuscitation in Santa Monica?”

“Dude, it’s California,” Kiwanuka offered him a _hang loose_ hand signal. “I dealt with shit you can’t even imagine.”

Jack huffed a laugh, dropping a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Fair enough.”

“Don’t get killed,” Kiwanuka said suddenly. “I mean, you’re pretty much our only hope of getting out of here, so….”

“I’ll do my best,” Jack nodded, then turned to Mouse. “You ready to try this thing, kid?”

“Do or do not,” Mouse replied solemnly. “There is no try.”

Mac barked a surprised laugh, pressing a hand to his chest against the obvious flair of pain.

“The Force is strong with this one,” Jack teased, pointing to Mouse.

Ignoring the dull ache that had settled in his bones, the latent sharp pains in his shoulders, Jack took a slow breath, then climbed up on the table next to Mouse. Shifting the ceiling tile to the side, he boosted Mouse up to the air vents, and then pulled himself up in after him.

“Comms check.”

_“I read you,”_ replied Kiwanuka.

_“Same,”_ Mac replied.

Mouse had already started crawling forward, well-versed in the lay of the land. Jack followed, pulling himself on his forearms, pausing as he looked down through the vent above where Mac sat slumped in the blankets, hand still on his chest as though to hold himself together.

_“I’m waiting….”_ Mac commented.

Jack grinned. “Now I know what a TV dinner feels like.”

_“And there it is.”_

Jack saw Kiwanuka shake his head and hop up on the map table to replace the tile.

_“I’ll be okay, Jack,”_ Mac promised softly. _“You’ll make sure of it.”_

“Just keep breathing, brother,” Jack replied, pulling himself forward. “That’s your only job.”

_“Your air is my air,”_ Mac replied.

“That’s right,” Jack huffed, wincing at the stab of pain in his shoulders as he continued forward, following Mouse. “That’s right.”

_Nothing to it,_ he told himself. He’d fought off international terrorists, Al-Qaeda, and Murdoc. What were a few pirates?


	7. Chapter 7

**PART SEVEN**

**Mac  
 _NOAA ship, Zephyr, the North Atlantic  
Sunday night_**

His body felt hollow and heavy, the persistent ache in his chest spiking to a stabbing pain each time he coughed. He hurt, but not the way he expected. Not the way he’d convinced himself he would when he came to terms with the reality of his plan back in the DSV.

The pain came in flashes and waves; it burned and traveled along his skin like electricity. When it spiked, he kept his eyes closed, just feeling the pain snap and warm him. Oddly, disturbingly grateful to even be able to feel that pain. He was finally starting to warm up after the hellish cold from the water, but it wasn’t a comforting warmth.

His eyes burned, his face burned, and his side…his side felt like a branding iron was beneath his skin. He moved his hands clumsily to the wound there, hissing in a breath at the stabbing pain now present, and dug the fingers of his free hand into his thighs until his pants were damp with the sweat from his palms.

“You good, there, Boy Wonder?”

Mac looked up to where Kiwanuka stood over the opened laptop on the map table and tried to focus on the man’s face. All he could see was the adipocere effect from the faces of the sailors trapped in the sub on the sea ridge below. He blinked, shaking his head, trying to balance his breathing.

Jack could hear them. He couldn’t freak out now. Couldn’t distract him.

“Yeah,” he rasped, feeling as though his voice was climbing up from the base of his gut. “I’m good.”

“I’ll be right back,” Kiwanuka said.

Mac closed his eyes when the man left the room, sinking against the pile of blankets Mouse had created for him. He was so tired. Everything… _everything_ hurt.

He wanted just to take one breath, just one, without pain, without such tremendous _effort_.

When he heard the other man reenter the lab, Mac peeked through his lashes, then opened his eyes fully, frowning. “What’s all that for?”

Kiwanuka set a box on the floor near Mac, pulling out the defibrillator, med kit, the spare portable oxygen tank Jack had left in their rack, and a small case of bottled water.

“I like to be prepared.”

Mac had no plans to need the defibrillator again—his chest still burned from before—but he took one of the bottles of water and drank deeply, soothing the aching need to cough. Wrapping an arm around his side, he couldn’t suppress the wince as his wounded chest crackled when he moved.

“I couldn’t find any pain killers,” Kiwanuka offered apologetically. “But…we do have the morphine from your med kit.”

“’s okay,” Mac mumbled. “Need to stay clear-headed.”

Kiwanuka narrowed his eyes at him, but before he could say anything, Mac spoke up.

“How you guys doing, Jack?” he raised his voice slightly.

_“Almost there,”_ came Jack’s whispered reply.

_“There’s a vent access in the radio room,”_ Mouse whispered, _“and one in the storage on the other side of the wall.”_

“Is there access from the storage room to the radio room?” Mac asked, clearing his throat.

_“Affirmative,”_ Jack replied. _“Hold. Going for a look.”_

Mac closed his eyes, listening to Jack breathe as he crawled through the vents, trying to keep his own breathing steady and as silent as possible.

_“I see two bad guys, both armed,”_ Jack whispered, _“looks like just harpoon rifles and pistols.”_

Mac knew Kiwanuka was watching him, but he ignored the other man for the moment, concentrating only on the voice in his ear, the familiar feeling of knowing Jack was near simply because he could hear him.

“You see the crew?”

_“Affirmative,”_ Jack replied. _“Looks like our people are along the wall near the storage room…and about…,”_ Jack’s voice strained slightly with what was most likely a repositioning, _“twelve of the ship’s crew. No sign of Dreymon.”_

“He’s probably on the bridge with Roberts,” Kiwanuka guessed. “Their Plan A went to shit, so Roberts has to figure he gets sub to the Russians, makes up some of his money.”

Mac peered at the other man through one eye. Kiwanuka’s eyes were on the map, but Mac could tell he wasn’t really seeing it.

“That’s fifteen friendlies,” Mac drew Kiwanuka’s attention back to him, “and two pirates.”

_“Affirmative,”_ Jack whispered. _“What are you thinking, Hoss?”_

Mac took a breath, but immediately started coughing, his chest lighting up with pain, his side burning. It took him several seconds to gain his breath once more—seconds they didn’t have.

_“Mac?”_

“’m good,” he gasped, opening his eyes, and drawing back with a start to see Kiwanuka crouched right in front of him. “You got your phone?”

_“My phone?”_ Jack asked, clearly confused. _“Uh, no, Mac. Didn’t figure on calling anyone.”_

_“I have mine,”_ Mouse whispered. _“But there isn’t any reception in here.”_

“Nice,” Mac replied, offering Kiwanuka a weak smile. “We don’t need reception for this. We’re gonna signal our people that we’re here,” he said. “Then, Jack will distract the pirates and Mouse can get the people out.”

_“Signal our people…how?”_ Jack asked slowly.

“We send them a message only they will recognize,” Mac replied with a tight smile, and saw that Kiwanuka was beginning to echo it.

_“Uh, Mac…?”_

Grinning, Kiwanuka spoke up, “You still got that file we downloaded for you, Mouse?”

_“Yes.”_ After a brief pause, Mouse continued, _“You’re referring to Huron’s version of Morse Code this time.”_

“That’s right, kid. You with me?”

_“I believe I am.”_

“Great. You set the phone up there in the vent and get to the storage room quick and quiet, Mouse,” Kiwanuka ordered.

_“Understood,”_ Mouse replied.

Mac knew Jack wasn’t quite following them, but then the strains of The Beastie Boys’ _Sabotage_ filtered through their comms and Mac grinned when he heard Jack’s muffled exclamation of, _“Oh, hell yeah!”_

Mac and Kiwanuka sat side-by-side, listening to Mouse report that he was in the storage room as Ad-Rock shouted _what you see you might not get,_ and Jack whispered an urgent play-by-play.

_“Huron hears it. Dude’s looking around like he thinks MCA’s about to walk through the door. The guards hear it now—they’re moving through the hostages; everyone’s hands are up. G is looking up at the vent—don’t think he can see me. But he’s whispering to Huron—yeah, that’s right, boys. The cavalry is here.”_

Mac grinned, holding up a fist that Kiwanuka tapped with his own.

_“Okay, this is it,”_ Jack’s tone shifted. _“The guards are turned toward the main door. I’m dropping down. Mouse, you ready?”_

_“I’m the fly in the ointment. The monkey in the wrench,”_ Mouse whispered.

Mac wrapped his arm around his side, his lips pulling up in a smile. “Go get ‘em.”

They could hear a harsh clatter and then Jack huffed a shout of effort. Surprised exclamations in Russian assaulted their ears and Mac curled his free hand into a fist at his side. Kiwanuka pushed to his feet and began pacing. They could hear Jack cursing and the obvious sounds of a fight.

And then suddenly Mouse’s voice slipped through the chaos, _“Come with me if you want to live.”_

Mac uttered a weak laugh and he heard G exclaim in surprise, _“Where the hell did you come from?”_

_“I’m here to rescue you.”_ Mouse’s voice was almost serene.

“I swear to God if one of them says he’s a little short for a stormtrooper…,” Kiwanuka muttered, lacing his fingers behind his head, eyes on the floor, entire body tense.

Mac was too focused on listening for Jack to appreciate the man’s humor. There were several other crashes and grunts, but no retorts of a gun, for which Mac was anxiously awaiting. After a moment he heard another faint voice.

_“Thought you could use a hand.”_ It was G.

Mac felt himself relaxing back against the wall in relief.

Jack was puffing, but Mac could hear a distinct smile in his voice. _“Thanks, man.”_

“Jack?” Mac called, wincing at the sound of his own voice, and pressing his hand against his chest as pain stabbed through him with just that slight effort.

_“Guards are down,”_ Jack reported. _“All fifteen friendlies accounted for.”_

_“Who are you talking to?”_ G’s faint, familiar voice demanded.

_“We got two back in the lab,”_ Jack reported. _“You guys ready to take your boat back?”_

_“They got more weapons on the bridge,”_ one of the crew reported.

_“Kirk? That you, kid?”_

Mac smiled faintly at Jack’s delighted tone. The man may be hurting, but he was in his element. If he closed his eyes, Mac could picture Jack searching the two pirates and pulling any weapons they had on them away. Sure enough, in seconds he heard the click of a pistol clip.

_“Yessir,”_ Kirk replied.

_“They roughed you up some, huh?”_ Jack asked.

Kirk didn’t reply right away, and Mac frowned, listening. Then, _“I was pissed at myself for trusting Roberts. Took a swing. I missed…he didn’t.”_

_“Good for you,”_ Jack replied. _“You know how to work all this radio stuff? Get us hooked up to the satellite?”_

_“Yessir,”_ Kirk replied. _“But, uh…why?”_

_“Got me a guardian angel,”_ Jack replied. _“And believe me when I say, she never misses.”_

“Jack,” Mac wheezed, wincing, and holding his side tighter. He felt his heart tremble against his wounded chest, a wetness beneath the fingers at his side that didn’t bode well. “We’re, uh…we’re ready here.”

_“Roger that,”_ Jack responded immediately. _“Kirk, give me whatever dilithium crystals you got in this rig.”_

_“Roger that,”_ Kirk echoed. _“Where am I pointing it?”_

Mac looked at Kiwanuka who handed him the laptop. Trying to clear his throat, his lungs working overtime to keep the cough at bay, Mac tried to bring the coordinates into focus.

“I got this,” Kiwanuka said softly, crouching next to Mac. He read off the coordinates as Mac dropped his head back against the wall, trying to slow his breathing, calm his racing heart. “Let me know when it’s in position.”

They waited for what felt to Mac like hours but in truth was only a few minutes. Then, _“Okay, we’re good,”_ Jack reported.

“Sending the SOS to Matty,” Mac rasped. As he hit ‘send’, a heavy _clang_ reverberated through the empty research bay. He looked over a Kiwanuka. “Hey, Jack?”

_“Right here, bud.”_

“Any chance…one of those guards, uh…got a warning out?”

The _clang_ turned into a series of _clacks_ that sounded to Mac like the hatch door opening.

Kiwanuka shot to his feet. “Oh, shit.”

_“I’m headed back,”_ Jack asserted.

“No,” Mac rasped. “Go get the crew—take control of the bridge,” he coughed into the crook of his elbow. “It’s the only way…only way we’re going to make it until…until the Phoenix gets here.”

_“They can—”_

But the rest of what Jack was about to say was lost as Kiwanuka headed for the door of the lab room, his switchblade suddenly in his hand. Mac closed the laptop, and reached for the wall, painfully pulling himself to his feet. A harsh bark of Russian had him flinching.

“Get the hell out of here, man,” Kiwanuka shouted. “This is a research ship, you asshole.”

Mac watched as the botanist headed at a run out of the room. Thinking quickly, he looked around for anything he could use to protect himself. In desperation, he hit the charge on the defibrillator, the whine high-pitched and persistent. Leaning heavily against the wall, he stared at the door, hearing a fist fight both in the bay and in his Bluetooth comm.

_“Mac!”_

He didn’t have the strength to answer Jack but could tell the man was in action. Whether it was heading to the research bay to rescue him, or to the bridge to rescue the Captain, he couldn’t be sure. And before he could call out to Kiwanuka, another pirate appeared in the doorway, completely blocking his view of the research bay.

“Oh, hey,” Mac swallowed, head tipped back as he looked up at the pirate’s face. “You’re…big.”

The man responded in Russian and Mac shrugged helplessly, wishing Jack were there to translate.

“Sorry, man,” he shook his head. “I took Spanish in high school.”

The big man stepped forward, glancing at the map table, then at the laptop and nest of blankets. He muttered something else and Mac felt for his Swiss Army Knife he always kept in his pocket before remembering that he hadn’t dressed himself.

_“Help’s on the way, Mac!”_ Jack shouted in his ear.

The pirate stepped forward once again and grabbed Mac by the front of his sweatshirt. Mac felt like a ragdoll, hanging helplessly from that grip. The big man shook him, and Mac landed a punch, but it merely glanced off, turning the Russian’s face an angry shade of red.

“Oh shit,” Mac muttered just as the Russian backhanded him, hard, sending him spiraling to the ground, landing on his wounded side, and driving the air from his lungs.

The world spun around him; it felt as though his ribcage had been replaced by knives. The Russian flipped him over and he felt more than heard his own groan of pain.

“Please…,” he begged. “Please, don’t do this….”

The man kneeled over him, his hands pressing against Mac’s chest, thumbs at his throat, and Mac clutched desperately at his wrists, the world beginning to narrow as pain became his whole universe.

A dull roar in his ears replaced all sound. He couldn’t hear Kiwanuka’s fight in the research bay or the chaos of Jack and Mouse with the crew in the radio room. He couldn’t hear his own pulse as it beat frantically against the base of his throat, or the furious mutterings of the man who was attempting to crush him to death.

He was on fire, his lungs weeping, his bruised sternum trembling, his grip weakening. The silent _need_ for audible anguish strained impotent and mute against his throat, a nightmare silence that in a rush of rebellion beat him back to awareness.

Flailing to the side, he found one of the leads to the defibrillator, slapping it against the Russian’s throat. The man looked up, confused, releasing Mac’s throat, and stumbling off him to his feet as he reached for the lead. Mac gasped desperately for air, spots dancing before his eyes as he cranked up the charge.

The Russian found the edge of the lead just as Mouse suddenly plummeted through the ceiling tile, missing the map table completely, and dropped on top of the Russian’s shoulders, knocking the man aside. The wiry genius fell to a hard stop on his hip and shoulder as the Russian staggered and Mac hit the button on the defibrillator with all his strength, sending volts directly to the man’s carotid artery.

The big Russian fell to the ground, his body shaking and spasming, spit foaming and spilling from his mouth.

“Mouse!” Kiwanuka shouted from the doorway, blood trailing down one side of his face, his shirt torn and his shoulders heaving. “You okay, kid?”

“Yes,” Mouse replied. “Jack thought I could get here faster.”

Mac couldn’t push himself up; he simply lay gasping, his eyes tracking from Kiwanuka to Mouse, dragging in rough, slow breaths, tears running down his face from the effort to breathe.

“He was right,” Kiwanuka stepped into the room, kicking the lead from the Russian’s neck. “Find me something to tie this guy up with.”

“Wh-what…about the other….” Mac gasped, wincing as Kiwanuka helped him back onto the blankets. He cried out as he lay back, his side stretching with the motion.

“He’s out there,” Kiwanuka replied vaguely, frowning as he pulled up Mac’s sweatshirt. “He won’t be bothering us.”

“Is he dead?” Mouse asked, his voice flat.

“Not yet,” Kiwanuka replied enigmatically.

Mac was having a hard time tracking their motion, the room spinning around him, pain a living thing beneath his skin. He could feel the botanist’s hands—shockingly cool, and surprisingly gentle—against his side.

“You’re bleeding pretty badly again, Mac,” Kiwanuka said, regret turning his voice colors in Mac’s perception. “We need to get you to medical.”

“N-not if…the pirates…,” Mac gasped.

“I can go—” Mouse started.

“No,” Kiwanuka barked. “You stay here, right where I can see you.”

“Understood,” Mouse replied. “I’ll be your compass.”

Mac saw Kiwanuka shoot an unreadable look in Mouse’s direction, but then his eyes rolled closed.

“Wh-Where’s Jack?”

_“I’m here, kid,”_ Jack replied immediately, his strained voice telling Mac he’d heard everything. “ _You just keep doing your job.”_

“Breathing,” Mas rasped.

_“Atta boy,”_ Jack muttered. _“Kiwanuka?”_

“I got him,” Kiwanuka said, and Mac felt him press something against his wounded side, biting his lip to quiet his cry of pain. “Go get our ship back.”

Mac kept his eyes closed, not wanting to see the slow spin of the ceiling tiles above him, trying to keep a tight rein on the agony that threatened to pull him under. He felt something cool against his side once more and groaned weakly, hearing a low curse in response.

“Jesus, kid, don’t you fucking die on me,” Kiwanuka whispered.

“’m still here,” Mac murmured, his chest rattling desperately with the words.

A stab of pain cut into him again and he shuddered, a helpless sound caught mid-way between a moan and a sob echoing at the base of his throat.

“Mouse, we need the doc,” Kiwanuka said with enough urgency, Mac found himself trying to open his eyes. “The minute Jack has control of the bridge, you full-on _run_ to medical, you got me?”

“I understand,” Mouse replied.

Mac vacillated between keen awareness and a muffled sort of detachment, wanting to track Jack’s progress, but slipping into a middle ground where the fact that it hurt to breathe didn’t matter quite so much.

He coughed, his body shaking with the effort, and he felt Kiwanuka roll him to his side, away from the wound. He grabbed breath, finding it easier than when he was on his back, and reached for the sharp ache against his ribs.

“Ah, no, don’t touch,” Kiwanuka moved his hand away. “Look, Mac, the staples aren’t holding, and I need to try to stop this bleeding, so…uh, I’m sorry, but this is gonna hurt.”

And then without any further warning, the man pressed _hard_ on his wound. Pain ripped through Mac like lightening, coursing down his side with claws of agony, white-hot and pervasive.

He couldn’t help it. He screamed, his voice tearing through any veiled pretense.

It hit the air like an audible strike, shattering against him and filtering around the people in the room like dust.

And then there was silence.

* * *

****_Jack_   
_NOAA ship, Zephyr, the North Atlantic  
Sunday night_

The sound of Mac in pain was not something Jack had handled well.

The sight of it was worse, but hearing Mac suffer—especially when the kid always fought so hard to contain it—was like a rake against Jack’s heart, stabbing and pulling until he almost wanted to rip it from his chest.

When it was clear that pirates had invaded the research bay, Jack knew he couldn’t get back to Mac quickly without drawing unwanted attention—but he couldn’t just _listen_ to the kid struggle for breath, struggle to survive. He hoped with everything in him that sending Mouse back was the right thing.

With the help of Crewman Kirk, they’d been able to get a signal out to Phoenix and a reply was almost immediately returned. Attention torn between the fifteen people he now considered under both his command and protection and the struggle he could hear on his comms, Jack caught Kirk’s eye.

“We’ve got a reply,” Kirk said. “ETA fifty minutes.”

“Fifty?” G exclaimed. “Damn, that’s fast! Where are they, Greenland?”

“With Matty, it’s entirely possible,” Jack muttered, breathing a sigh of relief when he heard Mac overpower the Russian and grinning a bit when he figured out how he’d done it. “Okay, look. We are taking this ship back. Who here has weapon’s training?”

G lifted his hand, as did two other crew members, including Kirk. Jack nodded and handed over the weapons he’d taken from the pirates.

“Kirk,” Jack said, pulling the .38 from his waistband and ignoring Huron’s wide-eyed flinch when he saw the weapon, “you’re gonna get me to the Bridge, copy?”

Kirk nodded. “Copy.”

“The rest of you,” Jack looked around the room, “stay behind us—Huron, what in the hell are you doing?”

The lanky meteorologist was climbing on top of the radio stand and reaching up into the vents. He dropped back down with Mouse’s phone in his hand, turning off the music that had been a back-beat to their rescue plan.

“Figure if it worked once, it could work again,” Huron shrugged, sliding the phone in his pocket.

_“Wh-Where’s Jack?”_ he heard Mac’s voice tremble through the comm. _God_ , the kid sounded wrecked. He hadn’t heard him this bad since…hell, since Cairo.

Jack pressed a hand to his ear. “I’m here, kid. You just keep doing your job.”

_“Breathing,”_ he heard Mac reply, sounding like he was doing anything but.

“Atta boy,” Jack allowed a smile to slip through the words, then shifted his attention. “Kiwanuka.”

_“I got him,”_ the botanist replied. _“Go get our ship back.”_

Jack looked at the rest of the crew. “Let’s roll.”

G and the other crewmember stayed close to Jack as they followed Kirk through the ship. When they passed medical, Jack nodded to Amber.

“Get in there with the doc,” he said. “Wait for our signal and then haul ass back to Mac.”

“What about the guy in there with the gun?” Amber asked, her voice shaking.

“Shit,” Jack muttered. He’d forgotten about that albino asshole.

“I got this,” Kirk replied, his chin jutting forward, bruised face set with the bravery of youth and sheer determination. “Bridge is straight ahead—these guys’ll get you there.”

Jack grabbed Kirk’s shoulder. “Hey,” he said, waiting until the young crewman looked up at him. “You be careful.”

“I got this,” Kirk replied. “Besides…you owe me an original Spock joke, remember?” He moved around Jack, tossing a grin over his shoulder. “Not like I’m going to miss out on that.”

“Dammit, kid. I’m a soldier, not a comedian,” Jack muttered as Kirk and Amber branched off from the group.

“Okay, Bones,” G bumped Jack with his elbow. “We’re on the clock here.”

Before Jack could move, however, Mac’s scream of pain cut through his comms and slammed into him, sending him stumbling back against the hull of the ship. He pressed his hand over his ear.

“Kiwanuka?” he called weakly.

He couldn’t hear Mac. He didn’t get a reply from his call. Eyes going to G’s in fear, he gripped the .38, the barrel pointed up, and called the botanist’s name again.

_“Kinda busy here,”_ Kiwanuka replied.

“What happened?”

_“He’s bleeding pretty bad, Jack,”_ Kiwanuka said, his voice tight. “ _I think I got it under control, but…he’s hurting, man.”_

“Is he conscious?”

_“Not at the moment.”_

“Fuck,” Jack slammed a fist against the side of the ship.

“Mac?” G guessed.

Jack nodded.

“Bad?”

Jack looked at the blond man. “We are getting these guys,” he growled. “Now.”

G simply lifted the weapon Jack had given him and they moved forward. Reaching the door to the bridge, G held out an arm, halting Jack’s movement.

“There are two ways into the bridge,” he whispered. “There’s another door up from the engine room, through there.”

Jack nodded, eyes narrowing. Mac was the one who improvised, who used the elements at his disposal to pull off the impossible. But Jack was a soldier. A tactician.

And he knew how to use people against themselves.

“Huron,” he called softly, the lanky man snapping to attention as if it had been a barked order. “We’re going to use the Boys one more time.”

Huron’s grin split his thin face. “Nice.”

“You,” Jack pointed to one of the other crewmen with the weapon. “Take him and two others through the engineering door. Wait one minute, then crank that shit up.” He looked at G. “Soon as we hear the music, we’re going through this door.”

G nodded, squaring his stance. Jack nodded at Huron and the four men branched off.

“How long will it take them to get to that other door?” Jack asked.

G narrowed his eyes. “About five mins, give or take.”

Jack nodded, then pressed his hand to his ear. “Kiwanuka? How’s my boy doing?”

_“Not gonna lie, man,”_ Kiwanuka replied. _“He’s pretty rough.”_

_“’m s-still here.”_ Mac’s voice was pain, pure and simple. Jack felt his gut clench.

“I’m coming back,” Jack promised. “We’re going home.”

_“I know,”_ Mac whispered.

Jack chewed on his lip, knowing the men around him could only hear his half of their whispered conversation, but not caring. Right now, what mattered is that _Mac_ heard him.

“Hey, you remember that horse? The white one in Kabul?” he asked Mac.

_“Yeah,”_ Mac’s reply sounded strained, as if he were breathing through a straw.

“We thought we were goners until we saw that horse,” Jack reminded him. “And we knew if it made it through, we’d make it through.”

_“I…remember.”_

“You just keep thinking about that horse, kid,” Jack ordered him. “I’m getting us home.”

He dropped his hand and looked at G, blinking at the strange expression that crossed the other man’s face. “What?”

“Just…damn glad you’re here with us,” G replied.

Jack squared his shoulders, moving closer to the bridge door. “Yeah, well,” he huffed. “That makes one of us.”

G smiled grimly in response and they held still, listening for the signal. Roughly one minute later, Ad-Rock’s signature _whhhhhhaaaaaaaaa_ scream from _Sabotage_ echoed through the bridge and Jack nodded at G as they yanked the door open and charged the room.

“Hands up! Hands up! Show me your hands!” Jack shouted, the .38 pointed at the nearest figure in black. He felt G at his side and surged forward, grabbing the nearest pirate, and shoving him against the wall, his weapon at the base of his skull. “Drop your weapons now or I put a bullet in him!”

The music and the dual entrances had confused the Russians, just as it was meant to, their harpoon rifles pointing in different directions—two of them at each other. The ship’s crew trapped on the bridge had dropped to the ground, hands up, and Roberts stood near one of the windows, his expression caught between shock and fury.

“And here I thought you’d left us,” he growled at Jack, stepping forward. Jack cocked the .38, pressing it harder against the base of the pirate’s skull. “If you think I’m concerned about you shooting that man, you’ve overestimated his importance to me.”

Jack lifted the side of his mouth in a humorless grin. “How many of you speak English?” He asked in Russian. The pirates looked at each other, then at Jack. “This man just told me to shoot your friend,” he continued in Russian, watching as Roberts’ expression fell, his eyes darting to the pirates. “He said he isn’t important. I bet he’s important to you, isn’t he?”

He pulled the pirate away from the wall, shoving him forward, the weapon still at the base of his skull, his body a shield between Jack and the rest of the pirates.

“Don’t listen to him,” Roberts snapped in Russian. “He’ll say anything right now.”

“Maybe,” Jack said in English. “Maybe you think you got the upper hand because you got some guys down in the research bay, and someone in medical, that it?”

Roberts narrowed his eyes.

“G? Get on the horn there,” Jack ordered, not taking his eyes off Roberts. “Call down to the bay.”

Roberts flicked his eyes to the pirate who had a harpoon rifle trained on G. He nodded and the pirate lifted the barrel of the rifle. G grabbed the mic for the comm.

“Bridge to research bay,” he spoke into the receiver. “Mouse?”

_“Research bay here,”_ returned Mouse’s voice. Jack grinned when Roberts’ face lost most of its color. _“I assume the mission was successful?”_

“Almost,” G replied. “You got two pirates down there?”

Mouse paused _. “Yes. Though, neither one is very comfortable right now. All I could find to tie them up were electrical cords.”_

“Good job, Mouse,” G smiled. He switched channels. “Bridge to Medical.”

_“Medical here,”_ Crewman Kirk replied. _“We’re five-by-five, Bridge.”_

“What about our pirate friend?” G asked.

_“Out like a light,”_ Kirk replied.

“There you go,” Jack grinned, shoving the pirate in his grip forward until he stumbled against Roberts, turning around slowly with his hand in the air. Jack leveled his weapon at Roberts’ head. “Now, show me your fucking hands.”

Roberts lifted his hands slowly; his motion prompting the pirates on the bridge to lower their rifles and do the same.

“Captain Dreymon?” Jack called.

The man in question stood and stepped over to Jack.

“The ship is yours, Captain,” Jack said, handing him the .38. “And we’re about to have company.”

“Thank you,” Dreymon replied sincerely. “You all, secure these men,” he ordered the remaining crew.

Jack moved to G and took the receiver from his hand, watching as the big man kept his weapon trained on the pirates. “Bridge to Medical,” Jack said. “Amber, this is your signal. Get that doc down to Mac.”

_“Mouse just showed up,”_ Amber replied. _“We’re gathering supplies.”_

“I’m heading there now,” Jack dropped the receiver and looked at G.

“Go,” G told him with a side jerk of his head, keeping his eyes on Roberts. “We got this.”

Jack turned and took off down ship toward the research bay, ducking low and jumping over the raised passageway transitions. He saw the doctor in medical as he ran past, but didn’t stop to check on what he was packing in his little black bag because he could hear Mac coughing again in his ear piece, only this time it was the strangled gasp that came after that forced Jack to find a new gear.

Mac literally sounded like he was drowning all over again—and Jack knew he was never going to outlive the horror of that sound.

_“Dammit!”_ Jack heard Kiwanuka curse as he closed himself into the pressurized passageway between the rest of the ship and the research bay, waiting for the green light.

The minute the _all clear_ lit up, Jack was turning the wheel and pushing the door open, slamming it closed once more behind him.

“Mac!”

“We’re in here,” called back Kiwanuka.

Jack pulled the comm from his ear as the voices echoed in the empty research bay. He hurried to the lab where he’d left them and found Mac lying in rescue position on the blankets, Kiwanuka at his back supporting him with one hand and shaking the spare oxygen cannister with the other. Jack went to his knees on Mac’s other side and saw the tortured blue eyes of his partner slide sluggishly up at him.

“We’re out of O2,” Kiwanuka growled, tossing the empty cannister to the side.

Jack eased the Bluetooth off Mac’s ear and pressed his palm against his partner’s heated face. “What’s happening to him?”

“Pretty sure it’s secondary drowning,” Kiwanuka bit out, “and if we had some oxygen, I’d know what to do, but….”

“Jack—” Mac wheezed, his voice thin and strained. He reached a clumsy hand for Jack who grabbed him back in a tight grip.

“Easy, kid,” Jack reassured. “I gotcha. I gotcha, c’mere.” He slid around to rest against the wall and pulled Mac up against him, wincing at the heat he could feel at Mac’s exposed wrists and neck. An hour ago, he was freezing and now he was burning up. “I gotcha, just lean against me. There you go.”

“The staples aren’t holding,” Kiwanuka reported, straightening up. “I managed to pack the wound a bit, but he’s lost a lot of blood.”

Jack guided Mac’s head back against his shoulder, noting that the shuddering breaths and weak inhales were already starting to ease up slightly in this position. Kiwanuka moved toward the doorway, splitting his attention between where Jack held Mac on the ground and the empty research bay.

“Doc’s on his way,” Jack reported, both to reassure Mac and to inform the botanist now on guard. “You just hang in there, you hear me?”

Mac nodded weakly, lashes fluttering as he fought to stay conscious. “One…job.”

“That’s right, you got one job: keep breathing.”

“P-pirates?”

“We got ‘em,” Jack rested his hand on top of Mac’s head. “Everyone’s okay, bud.”

Mac shuddered in his arms and reached weakly for his side, his eyes rolling closed. Jack took his hand, keeping his hot fingers away from Kiwanuka’s bandage.

“Leave that be for a minute,” Jack said softly.

“H-hurts,” Mac managed, swallowing hard as he fought to suppress another chest-rattling cough.

Jack nodded, pushing Mac’s tangled hair back from his forehead. “I bet it does. Never been shot by a harpoon—that’s a new one in our book. Doesn’t look like something I’m ready to stand in line to try.”

He kept the easy tone as he felt Mac’s tense muscles trembling against him, feeling his own heart shiver inside. He’d fought to block the memory of the times before when they’d been on the edge like this. Cairo, Lake Como, Murdoc, waterboarding by nitrogen, that damn nerve gas….

The cough took Jack by surprise as Mac tightened his grip and curled forward, his bruised and battered chest shaking beneath Jack’s arm.

“Easy, bud,” Jack soothed, trying to mask the tremble of fear in his voice. “One breath at a time. You got this.”

A _clang_ echoed through the bay and Kiwanuka disappeared from the doorway. After a moment, Jack heard the second door and Kiwanuka’s voice as he gave Doc Azar the rundown. Jack looked up as they came through the door.

“You’re saying he drowned, was hypothermic, revived, and was hit by one of those harpoon guns?” Azar repeated, his dark eyes and fierce scowl of concentration trained on Mac’s limp form.

“Not…exactly in that order,” Kiwanuka offered, “but, yes.”

The doctor crouched down in front of Mac and Jack, picking up Mac’s arm to press two fingers at his pulse point, then lifting his blood-soaked sweatshirt.

“It is extraordinary that I’m seeing what I am,” Azar murmured.

“He doesn’t like the odds,” Mouse reported from his perch on the map table.

Jack blinked in surprise—he hadn’t noticed the young engineer climb up there; it was as if he simply materialized in the room.

“Liking the odds has little to do with biology, young man,” Azar commented, pulling out his stethoscope and gesturing to Jack to ease Mac forward.

Mac was conscious, but only just. Jack was able to manhandle him into a position where the doctor could listen to his chest and then his back, then gathered him close once more as the doctor took out a portable pulse oximeter and a blood pressure cuff from the bag of supplies.

Jack simply sat quietly against the wall, holding Mac, and let the doctor work. The sharp pains in his shoulders had abated somewhat but he could still feel the persistent, dull ache throughout his chest and shoulders. His body felt like a ticking clock, counting down to the moment he simply wasn’t going to be able to move any more. He needed to conserve as much strength and energy as he could right now.

Mac needed him.

“His oxygen saturation is at 70,” Azar reported. “Blood pressure is 80 over 50. Pulse is...rapid. We need to get him on oxygen and get some volume….” He started to dig into his bag. “Young man,” he looked over his shoulder at Mouse.

“Technical Engineer, Phillip Maeson,” Mouse replied.

Jack blinked. He’d almost forgotten the young engineer had a real name.

“Maeson,” Azar nodded. “I need you to return to my quarters and bring back as many portable oxygen tanks you can find.”

“I’ll help,” Amber spoke up from the doorway, as Mouse jumped off the table.

“Do you know his blood type?” Azar asked Jack.

“AB-,” Jack replied immediately. “I’m a universal donor.”

“Yes, well, you look as though you’re barely functioning yourself,” Azar murmured. “No matter,” he brought out a bag of saline and shot a look over to Kiwanuka. “Are you solid?”

Jack looked up at the Asian man, registering for the first time that he had blood on his face from a previous fight.

“I’m good,” Kiwanuka replied.

“Excellent,” Azar muttered. “Find some place to hang this.”

He handed Kiwanuka the saline bag and began to insert a catheter into the back of Mac’s hand as Kiwanuka rigged up a stand with part of the map table and a roll of medical tape. Jack kept his hand flat against Mac’s chest, feeling the tremble of breath there, the anxious slam of his friend’s heart, the shiver of muscles.

Azar gently pulled Mac’s sweatshirt from his side. “What sort of pain medication have you given him?”

“None,” Jack rasped, clearing his throat. “Local only.”

Azar blinked. “You’re telling me he’s been given nothing for the pain?”

“We were afraid of slowing his heart,” Jack replied.

“’m okay,” Mac whispered, eyes rolling beneath his lids.

“Well,” Azar lifted an eyebrow in a delicate arch. “That is clearly untrue.”

He pulled a syringe out and injected it into a bottle of clear liquid. Jack saw the word ‘morphine’ on the label.

“Told you doc would fix you up, bud,” he said, his mouth near Mac’s ear. “Get you the good drugs.”

Mac nodded weakly, but before Azar could administer the pain meds, he started coughing once more, curling forward in Jack’s arms, his desperate gasps for air shaking him roughly in Jack’s arms. Jack followed his forward motion with his body, pressing his hand tighter against Mac’s chest as a brace.

He didn’t look at Azar or Kiwanuka, barely registering that the rest of the research crew had joined them. His whole world in that moment was the kid in his arms.

“C’mon, Mac,” he intoned softly, keeping his voice steady, even, something Mac could latch onto. “Just breathe, man. In and out, that’s it. There you go, nice and easy.”

He could feel Mac tremble, his chest hitching, his chin trembling. Tears rolled down his face, not from emotion but from the sheer effort it took to keep his body working the way it was made to.

“Gimme one breath.”

Mac pulled in a shallow, shuddering breath, then slowly exhaled through puckered, slightly bluish lips.

“That’s great, kiddo. You’re doing great. How about another one, and count to four on the exhale,” Jack coached, hoping that even in his haggard state, Mac would recognize rescue breathing techniques.

As Mac followed Jack’s instructions, his coughing dissipated, and he was able to lean back slightly in Jack’s arms. Jack met the doctor’s eyes and nodded, watching as Azar administered the shot of morphine.

The result was almost instantaneous.

Jack leaned back, pulling Mac with him, and felt the kid’s muscles begin to melt against him. His shoulders eased against Jack’s chest, his head fell back to Jack’s shoulder on a loose neck, and his tightly fisted hands uncurled and fell limp at his sides.

“Thank God,” Kiwanuka breathed.

“Keep him warm,” Azar admonished. “He can’t afford to go into shock.”

The door clanged and Jack blinked burning eyes as he saw Amber and Mouse return with three mini oxygen tanks and a fresh mask. Azar took them without a word, cranked the first one open fully and placed the mask over Mac’s face. Mac flinched in surprise, eyes opening wide as he lurched clumsily back.

“Hey, hey, easy,” Jack soothed. “It’s good. Friendlies, they’re friendlies.”

Mac blinked tented lashes rapidly, eyes roaming the room without recognition. He reached up an arm from the bundle of blankets around him and Jack caught his hand, gripping it in a reassuring hold.

“You’re safe, Mac,” he reassured. “I gotcha.”

“Not sure what wouldn’t be safe about an oxygen mask,” Azar muttered as he moved the blankets aside slightly to access Mac’s wound.

Jack didn’t take his eyes from Mac’s profile. “He was waterboarded with pure nitrogen a couple of years ago,” he stated, noting Amber’s sharp gasp. “Kinda has a thing about oxygen masks as a result.”

“Yeah, I can imagine he would,” G murmured.

Jack looked up, scanning the small lab room and saw that the entire research crew was present. “Anyone got tabs on the bridge?”

G lifted a portable radio. “Dreymon is going to radio us when the Phoenix gets here.”

Jack nodded. “We got a way to get them down to Mac?”

Amber frowned, looking over at Huron, then at Mouse. “They can get down here, but,” she winced, “how are we getting him out of here? There isn’t enough room in the hatch for a stretcher.”

“There is if we don’t need it to be pressurized,” Mouse pragmatically pointed out.

“How’s that?” Jack asked, puzzled.

Huron nodded, looking at G as if for permission. “We drop the flood doors over the dive pool.” He lifted a shoulder. “Then we open the hatch.”

Jack looked at G. “Can we do that?”

“You bet your ass,” G nodded. “After what you guys went through for us? We got you.”

“Well, before you go about your heroics and send all our eardrums into overdrive,” Azar broke in, “please allow me to get our patient stabilized.”

“What do you need, Doc?” Jack asked, noting that Mac was blinking aware, eyes sluggishly roaming the room.

Azar took a slow breath, then rested two long fingers on the pulse point inside Mac’s wrist. The motion pulled Mac’s eyes toward him.

“Are you with me, my boy?”

“His name is Mac,” Mouse supplied helpfully.

“Thank you,” Azar replied without looking back at him. “Do you hear my voice, Mac?”

“Yes,” Mac managed. Jack winced at the sound of his voice.

“You’ve been given pain medication,” Azar continued, “but I’m afraid I don’t have any numbing agent left.” He looked up at Jack, a grim expression on his face. “Our pirate friend exhausted my supply, it seems.”

Mac nodded slowly. “’K.”

“What that means is that I need to treat your wound, but you may feel it. Do you understand?”

Mac nodded again, and Jack felt him tighten his grip. Jack curled his fingers around Mac’s hand, watching as the younger man focused on a spot on the ceiling hard enough to be graded on it later, lines like drawn-in parentheses around his eyes. 

“You’re thinking about that horse, aren’t ya?” Jack asked him, rewarded with Mac’s eyes shifting toward him.

“Forgot,” Mac confessed, his voice so thin it nearly evaporated.

“What is it about that horse?” G asked. “You mentioned it earlier, too.”

Jack met Azar’s eyes and nodded, then shifted slightly so his embrace kept both of Mac’s arms steady and unable to easily reach his wound. He saw the doctor grab something from his bag, then turned his full attention to Mac.

“We’d been in Kabul about two months,” Jack started, “and we were with a convoy patrolling a section of town that had been a bit overrun of late. There were three other EODs with us, and we were clearing the street ahead of the convoy, remember?”

Mac flinched in his arms, his body instinctively pulling away from whatever Azar was doing to clean his wound, but he nodded, keeping his eyes on Jack. He was muddled with pain and morphine, but clear enough to recognize what Jack was trying to do.

“About an hour before sunset, we got boxed in,” Jack looked up at the group gathered around, alternating sitting on top of tables and leaning against walls, all eyes on them. “Two RPGs hit buildings on either side of us and a fire broke out, traveling through the market area—”

Mac flinched again, this time crying out and closing his eyes. His breath clouded the oxygen mask as he puffed quick bursts of air through the pain.

“Easy,” Jack soothed, resolutely not looking at what Azar was doing to Mac’s wound. “I gotcha.”

“Paper…,” Mac gasped. “Paper b-bomb.”

Jack nodded. “That’s right,” he looked back up at the group, seeing their pinched expressions and tight lips. “At first we thought we just had to wait out the fire—five of us found shelter in part of this house. We’d lost one of the guys on Overwatch but had all the techs with us. Problem was the whole street was littered with IEDs. One guy thought he saw a way out, and, uh…basically took off before any of us could stop him. Ran into a bomb hidden under a stack of papers.”

“Jesus,” Kiwanuka breathed.

“Hold him,” Azar said quietly.

Jack obeyed, curling his arm across Mac’s chest as gently as he could, bracing his trembling body as Azar did something to the wound that had Mac bowing his back, his neck head pressing into Jack’s shoulder as he sobbed helplessly against the pain. Jack murmured nonsense in Mac’s ear, keeping up the steady stream of promises until Mac went lax against him once more, panting clouds of air into the oxygen mask and blinking rapidly.

“I can’t believe he’s still conscious,” Kiwanuka muttered, dragging a hand down his face, and tugging at his bottom lip. “This is insane.”

“He’s handled a lot in this lifetime,” Jack replied quickly, stroking Mac’s sweaty hair back from his forehead.

“I’ll bandage this and then we can wrap him up and wait for our ride,” Azar replied.

“Where does the horse come in?” Mouse asked.

Jack stared up at him, his brain a mess of blurred lines.

“F-fire,” Mac gasped.

Jack nodded. “Yeah, okay, I was getting to that,” he pushed Mac’s hair back, resting one hand on the younger man’s head, holding his other hand loosely now that the torrent of pain had seemed to taper. “The fire from the RPGs kind of had us surrounded—and with the road littered with IEDs, we didn’t know which way was safe. It was getting hard to breathe. Mac rigged up these air filters using some of the mesh and materials from our packs and made us all wear them, but we knew we were screwed if we stayed there much longer.”

Jack dropped his head back against the wall, his eyes on the ceiling tiles, but seeing instead a smoke-choked, dust covered road, three other men in desert fatigues, and desperately determined blue eyes regarding him solemnly.

“Suddenly…we see this horse,” Jack said, his voice cracking helplessly as he felt Azar wrap Mac tightly in the blankets around them. “This white horse—no tack whatsoever. Its nose was a little sooty from the smoke, but otherwise, it looked…strong. Big and strong and freaking wild, man.”

“Sh-shadow…fax,” Mac whispered.

Jack grinned, nodding without looking at him. “I forgot about that. Horse stops in front of where we’re all hunkered down and I swear to God, it looked right at Mac. And this kid goes all wide-eyed on me and says _it’s Shadowfax_ …some damn thing from _The Hobbit_.”

“ _Lord of the Rings_ ,” Mouse corrected. “Not _The Hobbit_.”

“Mouse,” Kiwanuka admonished quietly.

“I’m simply saying they are very different books,” Mouse replied calmly.

Jack huffed. “Naw, you’re right. You’re right. I just get them confused. Anyway, Mac starts toward the horse and I try to pull him back, but then the horse like…rears up and turns around and starts to run down the road—the same damn road where the paper bomb had just gone off.”

“Oh, my God,” Amber whispered. “Please tell me he makes it.”

“He made it,” Jack nodded, stroking the top of Mac’s head as he remembered the sight of the red from the flames mirrored off of the white flank of the horse, turning it into something surreal and magical before their eyes. “Took off down the road, ran past the fire and the buildings and through all the dust and dirt until we couldn’t see it anymore.”

Jack lifted his head, looking down at Mac. The kid was lying still in his arms, no longer fighting for air, or shaking from pain, just lying there, breathing shallowly, and looking up at him with such an expression of trust that Jack felt his chest constrict.

“So, Mac says, if Shadowfax could make it out of there without getting blown up, we could, too,” Jack said, feeling tears at the base of his throat. “And that’s what we did—four of us followed this white horse through the smoke and the flames, down this dusty street, never hit one IED, and found the convoy on the other side.”

“Did you ever see the horse again?” Mouse asked.

Mac shook his head, eyes blinking slowly.

“Nope,” Jack replied, looking over at Mouse. “Never saw anything like it before or after. But…sometimes when I think we’ve had it; I remember that horse.”

He sighed, the energy and adrenaline that had kept him moving forward seeping from his pores as the story ended.

“S-saved…us,” Mac wheezed.

Jack nodded, gently pushing his fingers through Mac’s tangled hair. “You got that right, kid.”

He let his hand rest on Mac’s chest, his exhaustion close to overtaking him. For a long moment, no one spoke. It felt to Jack as though all their words had been used up.

The squelch on G’s radio made everyone jump. Dreymon’s voice echoed through the lab.

_“Helicopter ETA, ten minutes,”_ he reported. _“They’re dropping down two and getting our Phoenix team out of here. The Coast Guard is on its way and will pick up our Russian friends. Coast Guard ETA thirty minutes by sea. Over.”_

G looked around him. “You heard the man,” he said. “Let’s drop those flood doors and get this place ready to get Mac to some help.”

The flurry of movement around him suddenly had Jack blinking back dizziness. He watched as the room emptied and the research crew moved to different stations within the bay, readying their space for the change in pressure. Azar changed out Mac’s tapped out oxygen tank for another one, this time maneuvering the mask much more gently than the first time.

“Thanks,” Mac rasped.

Azar patted the back of his hand. “Just rest, young man,” he said softly. “You need it.” He looked up at Jack. “You may feel the change in pressure more than the rest of us,” he warned. “I believe you may still be suffering from some decompression side effects.”

“I’m okay, Doc,” Jack replied automatically, though he wasn’t all that sure he would be able to get up from the floor. The only thing he felt truly keeping him steady was the weight of Mac’s body against him. “Just make sure the kid’s okay.”

“Head’s up!” G shouted. “Flood doors coming down!”

Azar opened his mouth and pressed his hands against the base of his ears, nodding at Jack to do the same. Jack followed suit as he heard G counting down from three. With a deafening _bang_ the entire ship rocked with the weight of the heavy doors and the abrupt shift in pressure from within the research bay. Jack felt his ears pop; Mac shifted against him as though he’d felt it, too, but the oxygen mask seemed to be helping him regulate the pressure in his head.

“Everyone okay?” G called, receiving a round of ‘yes sirs’ from his team. He stuck his head into the lab and saw the doc nod. “Okay, open the hatch!”

The pressure released against Jack’s ears when he heard the now-familiar _clang_ as the hatch opened between the research bay and the rest of the ship. Jack felt as though the room was dimming around him, the edges of his perception fading with the increased activity. His shoulders ached, a stitch in his side tweaking his perception, but he didn’t dare move his hands away from Mac.

Not yet.

“ETA on helicopter, two minutes,” G called out.

Kiwanuka appeared in the door. “Jack,” he said calmly. “You got this?”

“Sure,” Jack replied.

There was no way they were keeping him from Mac now; he’d follow this kid into hell and back…in fact, he was fairly sure that’s what they’d done today. Kiwanuka ducked back out into the research bay and the room around them got very quiet.

For a bit, Jack felt reality slip its tether and he was simply leaning against the wall, Mac’s weight warm and solid against him, his hand flat on Mac’s chest, feeling the reassuring rise and fall as the younger man breathed—shallow and thin as it was, it was still breathing. He purposefully blanked his mind, not really connecting meaning to the motion as he watched Azar check Mac’s pulse ox reading, his blood pressure, the catheter connected to the saline bag.

The sudden arrival of two new faces had Jack jolting a bit with surprise. He heard Azar reporting to them, gesturing to Mac, saw their grim faces and nods, but couldn’t really figure out what they were saying. It was as if he’d gone partially deaf, the sound reaching his ear, but the actual words disconnected from weight, turning gray and empty and floating away before he could grasp them.

He watched as the two new faces leaned over Mac, checking his pulse, lifting his eyelids, and shining a light into his eyes, their mouths moving with purpose. He hadn’t registered that Mac had finally passed out; it didn’t clock for him until he watched the men lift Mac from his lap to lay him in the basket they’d brought with them, Mac’s neck in a C-collar, his lips parted beneath the oxygen mask, his eyes closed.

“Mac….” Jack started, feeling his mouth move, but unable to hear his own voice.

Jack started to move forward, reaching for Mac as his partner was secured in the basket for transportation. The minute he moved away from the wall the world shifted, turning around on him so abruptly he didn’t feel himself crash forward, his shoulder jarred by the impact.

He took a quick breath, trying to blink himself aware, _needing_ to be next to that basket, following Mac off this ship.

“Dammit, I knew it.”

Kiwanuka’s voice filtered toward him from miles away.

He felt himself being shifted and turned to his back and a light was piercing his eyes as hands tapped his cheeks, knuckles rubbing his sternum.

But his body was simply done.

Unable to rally further without the driving force of keeping Mac safe, awake, breathing.

He managed to turn his head toward the last place he’d seen Mac before the tunnel that had been chasing his vision narrowed to a pinprick of light and then faded completely.


	8. Chapter 8

**PART EIGHT**

**Jack  
 _Canadian hospital, undisclosed location  
Monday afternoon_**

“Jack.”

The voice was soft, a gentle cadence that made his mouth instinctively tip up at the edges.

“Hey, big guy,” the voice continued. “Think you can open your eyes?”

There was something in him that didn’t want to deny that voice, though he wasn’t sure why. He did as it asked, blinking hard to draw the face he could see looming over him into focus.

“Riley?” Holy shit, was that _his_ voice? He sounded like he’d swallowed a box of sandpaper.

Riley’s dark eyes softened, and she smiled down at him, stroking cool fingers across his forehead. “Hey there,” she greeted. “About time you decided to wake up.”

Jack swallowed hard and looked around. It wasn’t Phoenix medical, but it was definitely a hospital room. Riley used the bed controls to ease him carefully into a semi-upright position. He took the plastic cup and straw she handed him and drank gratefully.

“Where…?”

“Canadian hospital,” she informed him. “Closest, safe facility to the _Zephyr_.”

His throat closed. “Mac—”

Riley put a careful hand on his shoulder, and he saw worry and tension ripple across her features.

“Take it easy,” she implored him. “He’s on the other side of this curtain,” she glanced over her shoulder. “But before I pull it, I need you to _promise me_ you’ll stay in this bed until the doctor clears you.”

“Riley,” Jack pushed himself up a bit higher in the bed, his heart pounding a bit harder. He could hear the beep and swoosh of various machines, only just realizing they weren’t connected to him.

“Promise me,” she repeated, her brows pulled low over the bridge of her nose, her dark eyes serious.

Jack took a slow breath. “I promise.”

She studied him for another moment, then nodded and turned to reach for the curtain. Pulling it back, she stepped out of the way so Jack could see Mac lying in the bed next to him.

“Oh, kid,” he whispered.

“They had to put him on a ventilator,” Riley informed him. “Just for a bit—just until his lungs have a chance to recover a bit.”

Mac lay flat and unmoving, the slim ventilator tube tucked into the corner of his mouth, twin blue tubes spreading from the mouthpiece to the machine next to him. Jack could see bags of fluid hanging on a pump leading to an IV that disappeared beneath the blankets and leads tucked into the top part of Mac’s hospital gown.

“Tell me,” he whispered.

“You passed out before they got Mac off the ship,” Riley informed him. “You have a minor concussion, two cracked ribs, and you were suffering from decompression sickness, but they were able to get that straightened out pretty soon after you got here.”

“I don’t care about me—” Jack started, eyes still on Mac, but stopped when Riley put her hand on his, drawing his eyes.

“You’ve been unconscious for nearly eighteen hours,” she informed him, causing his eyebrows to bounce up in surprise. “You ran your body into the ground watching out for him. You want to be there for him now? You need to know what you’re facing so you can avoid it in the future.”

He blinked at her, taking in the raised eyebrow, the set of her jaw. “Okay, sweetheart,” he said softly, sinking back against the pillows. “I get you.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, then lifted her chin, apparently satisfied. “He was unconscious when they got him on the chopper. He came around once, but it wasn’t for long and he didn’t seem to be really aware of his surroundings.” She hitched a hip on the side of Jack’s bed and rested her hand on his knee, looking over to where Mac lay quiet and still. “They had to operate on the wound on his ribs—abrade it and stitch up from the inside out. Except for losing, like…a _lot_ of blood…it should heal up fine. They gave him a couple transfusions—just finishing up the last one, see?”

She pointed to one of the bags hanging off the IV pump next to his bed.

“His chest is a mess of bruises from being revived. The biggest worry is his lungs from the…,” her voice wobbled slightly, but she regained control, “the drowning. They feel if his lungs are given a chance to heal from the damage, he’ll recover.”

“How long does he have to be on the ventilator?” Jack asked.

Riley shook her head. “They said at least twenty-four hours,” she said. “He’s running a fever, so they’re worried about that a bit, too.”

Jack nodded. “You okay?”

As though she’d anticipated him asking that question, Riley’s shoulders sagged, and she looked over at him. “I’m…I mean, yeah, I’m okay. Just worried about you guys.”

“I’m okay, honey,” Jack patted the hand she still had on his knee. “Just had to let my body catch up.”

Riley narrowed her eyes again, her head jutting forward slightly as she started at him. “You had to watch your best friend drown and haul him back up through over one hundred feet of ocean then bring him back to life.” She shook her head. “Don’t think I don’t know that’s going to be messing with you.”

Jack dropped his head back, not answering her. After a moment he asked, “Any chance I can get some sweats or something? This hospital gown is a bit drafty.”

Riley tipped her head. “I can get you something… _if_ you promise to get some more sleep before you get out of bed.”

Jack felt his body ticking down once more, the familiar pull of exhaustion tugging at him with vengeance. “I promise,” he repeated softly. “Just…don’t leave him if I’m sleeping, okay?”

“He won’t be alone, Jack,” Riley reached up and ran her hand down the side of his face, his eyes closing with the soft touch. “Get some rest.”

He didn’t register the moment he slipped from awareness to dreams, but the dreams he faced chased him through the dark. Over and over, images of Mac’s body bucking held suspended in dark water, his eyes open and staring, his mouth agape with a silent scream caught Jack in a painful grip.

Fighting free, Jack pressed upright in the bed, sweat running down the sides of his face, gasping for air.

“Whoa, whoa, hey,” came a voice at his left.

Jack brought his fists up, his fight instinct triggered with a vengeance.

“Easy, man! It’s just me.”

“Kiwanuka?” Jack gasped, squinting into the darkened room.

The Asian man moved a bit closer as Jack dropped one arm, the other dragging a hand down his face to banish both the sweat and the images from his dream.

“Yeah,” the botanist replied, leaning against Jack’s bed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you…just looked like you were having a helluva dream.”

Jack nodded. “Fucking nightmare’s what it was,” he muttered. Looking around the room he saw that Mac was still in the bed next to him. “Where’s Riley?”

“She went to get some food,” Kiwanuka explained. “We’ve…uh,” the man almost looked like he was blushing, “we’ve all been kind of…taking turns. Making sure you guys weren’t alone.”

Jack blinked, surprised. “For real?”

Kiwanuka smiled. “For real. Coast Guard rounded up Roberts and his henchmen,” he reported handing Jack a cup of water. Jack saw the man had butterfly bandages on his forehead holding a cut together and his knuckles were bruised. “Dreymon put into port. Had to regroup anyway…with Dolly wrecked and the flood doors engaged, the _Zephyr_ isn’t much of a research ship right now.”

“Oh, dude, I’m sorry,” Jack muttered, sitting up further in the bed. “I didn’t think—”

Kiwanuka waved his hand. “Don’t. It’s all good. We can always regroup—we’ve still got our research grant,” he shrugged his shoulders. “We all agreed that making sure the guys who saved our asses are still in one-piece beats keeping to a schedule.”

Jack smiled. “Thanks, man.”

Kiwanuka stepped away from the bed and picked up a plastic bag, setting in on the bed between Jack’s ankles. “Riley brought this in for you. Said you were going to need it.”

“That’s my girl,” Jack grinned, opening the bag to find his clothes. “Don’t suppose she smuggled in a burger by chance?”

Kiwanuka shook his head. “No, but G’s got you covered.”

Jack smiled and nodded his thanks, climbing carefully out of bed on hollow legs. He showered quickly in the hospital bathroom, changing into his street clothes, feeling more solid than he had in days. Exiting the bathroom, he saw that Kiwanuka and Riley were flanking Mac’s bed, talking softly over his unconscious form.

He paused before he approached, catching a vulnerable expression on Riley’s face.

“What are you looking at?” Kiwanuka asked, his voice pitched so low Jack almost didn’t hear it.

Riley’s brows pulled close and she pushed her lips forward—her way of suppressing emotion, Jack recognized. “His hands.”

Jack swallowed; his eyes pinned to her profile.

“What’s about them?” Kiwanuka tilted his head, as though examining Mac’s hands.

“They’re…still,” Riley drew in a trembling breath. “Mac’s…he’s never still. He’s always…getting into something. Fixing something…or taking something apart. Just, always moving. Even when we’re in a meeting or debrief, he’s like…messing with paperclips, turning them into these, like…sculpture things.” She smiled. “It probably sounds weird, but…it makes me feel,” she lifted a shoulder, “safe, somehow. Mac’s moving, we’re going to be okay.”

“Doesn’t sound weird,” Kiwanuka confessed, and Jack watched as he scratched at the dark scruff framing the edge of his jaw. “I got someone like that on my team, too.”

Riley looked up at him and caught sight of Jack, smiling a greeting. “Feeling better?”

Kiwanuka rotated, his eyes tracking as Jack approached.

“More human anyway,” Jack nodded, looking at Mac’s hands lying relaxed and still on either side of his body. Riley was right: a motionless Mac was simply…wrong. “No change?”

Neither replied, but Riley pivoted slightly, her posture inviting him closer. A bag of food rested on the tray at the foot of Mac’s bed.

“This for me?” Jack asked.

Riley smiled at him. “Your friend Groendyke dropped it off. He said he’d be back in later but had to get a few things settled with the captain and crew of the _Zephyr_.”

Jack gratefully inhaled the burger, eyes on Mac’s still form, the steady beep from the heart monitor and swoosh from the ventilator providing an eerily reassuring back-beat. “How about the rest? Mouse and Huron? Amber?”

“They’ll be by later,” Kiwanuka reassured him. “We have some forms to file and there were some explanations we had to give about detonating the uranium…it’s all good.”

Jack nodded, then glanced at Riley. “Doc say how much longer he has to be on the vent?”

Riley sighed and shifted her weight from one hip to the other. “They’re going to start weaning him off of it in the morning,” she reported. “If he can breathe on his own enough…they’ll remove it.”

“Has he woken up at all?” Jack wadded up the food bag and threw it into the nearby trash bin.

Riley shook her head. “I can tell he’s dreaming, though,” she said. “His face does that thing where he looks like he’s caught halfway between a smile and a frown.”

“Yeah,” Jack nodded, familiar with that look. He took a breath. “How about you two go get some rest?” He suggested. “I got him.”

Riley and Kiwanuka exchanged a look.

“You sure?” Kiwanuka asked.

Jack nodded, not looking at the other man. “I’m good. All rested up.”

Riley put a hand on his shoulder and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. “I’m happy you’re okay,” she said. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

Kiwanuka walked past the end of Mac’s bed. “I’m happy you’re okay, too,” he said, then lifted an eyebrow. “But I’m not kissing you.”

Jack chuckled slightly, waving them out of the room, then sat in the chair next to Mac’s bed. He took up the younger man’s hand, studying the long, slim fingers, the way his veins stood out against the pale skin.

“You took a helluva risk, doing what you did,” he said softly. “Trusting me that much.” His breath shook slightly. “What if I hadn’t been able to bring you back, huh?”

He sat back, setting Mac’s hand back on the bed, then covering it with his.

“You take your time, kid,” he whispered. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

True to the doctor’s word, they began weaning Mac from the ventilator early the next morning. It only took about an hour without the sedation for Mac to start coming around. Jack flanked one side of the bed, the nurse the other as Mac started to stir restlessly, his hands flexing against the sheets, eyes rolling behind his closed lids.

Jack wrapped his fingers around Mac’s hand and leaned in low toward his ear.

“Hey kid, need you to listen to me right now, okay?” He kept his voice even and calm. “I know you’re confused and scared, but I need you to trust me. You remember your one job, right? Just breathe.”

Mac’s eyes blinked blearily open, gaze cloudy and dazed. He opened his mouth, immediately choking on the tube in his throat. The heart monitor spiked.

“He’s fighting it,” the nurse murmured. “I’m going to increase the sedation.”

“No, wait,” Jack implored. “He can do this—just give him a second.”

She frowned but paused, watching as Jack placed his hand on Mac’s spasming chest, leaning over so that Mac’s frantic, bleary eyes caught on his features.

“Hey, bud,” Jack smiled, keeping his voice steady. “You can do this, just one easy breath. With me, right? My air is your air.” He pulled in a slow breath, pressing Mac’s trembling hand against his chest to help ground him. “In and out. That’s it…there you go.”

The frantic beeping began to slow as Mac kept his eyes on Jack, splaying his hand wide and flat against Jack’s chest.

“That’s it, kid,” Jack nodded. “You got this.”

Mac’s eyes began to droop, and after a moment his hand slipped from Jack’s chest and dropped across his own.

“Good,” the nurse nodded, eyes on the machine readout. “This is good—he’s breathing on his own.”

“Can we take the tube thing out?” Jack asked.

“In an hour or so,” she nodded, “if he keeps this up.”

Jack sat back, keeping his hand wrapped around Mac’s, waiting. Mac’s sleep was restless; his frown burying lines around his eyes and between his brows. Two hours later, the doctor returned with the nurse and checked the machines. He seemed pleased.

“We can remove the ventilator tube,” he informed Jack. “Would you like to step out? It won’t be pleasant.”

Jack shook his head. “I ain’t leaving him, Doc.”

The doctor nodded, nonplussed. “Just stand aside for a moment, please.”

Reluctantly releasing Mac’s hand, Jack stepped to the side, watching as the doctor and nurse lowered the head of Mac’s bed, turning him to his side and detaching the tube anchor from around his mouth. With a smooth, abrupt tug, they pulled the tube from Mac’s throat and supported him as he coughed and gagged. When it was done, they raised his bed slightly, putting an oxygen mask on, as Mac blinked sluggishly.

“He’ll need to keep the mask on for a bit,” the doctor said. “Just to aid his lungs in remembering their job.”

“He still looks pretty out of it,” Jack commented as Mac’s eyes slipped shut once more without even a word.

“Yes, well, we had him under pretty strong sedation,” the doctor replied. “Give him a few hours.”

As it turned out, two hours turned into four, and then six, and still Mac slept. Riley came by once more, Kiwanuka stopped in, but Jack sent them away, saying he’d call when Mac was awake. He wasn’t sure how Mac would feel, waking up to a roomful of people.

At one point, he shifted from drugged unconsciousness to exhausted sleep, the nurse coming in to remove the oxygen mask and replace it with a nasal cannula. He slept through a dressing change for his wound and the removal of a few of his IVs. As sleep dug in, he shifted to the side, bringing one leg up in a position Jack was familiar with from many a mission.

Jack simply watched him, waiting through the temperature checks, the concerned frowns when his temp topped one hundred, waiting through another dressing change and the relief when his temperature began to drop. At the six-hour waiting mark, Jack realized the sound he kept hearing was his own stomach growling—but he was loathed to leave Mac’s side _just in case_.

A knock on the doorframe startled him, dragging his burning eyes up from Mac’s face to look over his shoulder where G and Mouse stood, hesitant, in the doorway.

“Hey,” Jack greeted softly, clearing the disuse from his throat. “C’mon in.”

G led the way with another bag of food. Jack felt his entire being smile in response.

“You must be some kind of Jedi,” he grinned standing and speaking in a stage whisper, setting the tone for their conversation. He took the bag gratefully. “How’d you know?”

“Figured you hadn’t left since I brought you the burger earlier,” G shrugged. “Waiting is hungry man’s work.”

“You can say that again,” Jack nodded, digging into the sandwich, and downing the bottle of cola.

“He’s off the vent,” G observed. “That has to be a good sign.”

Jack nodded. “So they say,” he replied around a mouthful of food. “Said he should wake up soon, but, just like always, he’s doing things his own way.”

“Gotta say…it, uh,” G crossed his arms over his chest, pulling at the beaded section of his blond beard, his voice pitched low in deference to the sleeping man in the bed before him. “It surprised me to learn some of the things you guys went through when you served.”

Jack lifted an eyebrow.

“Just, y’know,” G tilted his head, watching as Mouse made his way around the end of the bed, climbing into the chair Jack had vacated, “my image of what an EOD tech does didn’t really match up to your stories.”

“Figured it was all robots and remotes, huh?” Jack felt his mouth pull into a half smile.

“Kinda, yeah,” G nodded. He looked at Mac’s sleeping form. “He just…doesn’t really look like a soldier to me, I suppose.”

Jack lifted a shoulder. “He’s not, really. He’s…a scientist,” he frowned, trying for the right word. “Only…more.”

“An inventor,” Mouse said softly from where he perched on the chair. Jack looked down at him, noticing he held something in his hands. “A discoverer.”

Jack nodded. “The EOD stuff, that came from…,” he sighed, wadding up his trash into a tight ball of paper. “From a lot of years of…of damage, y’know? The kind of stuff we all deal with differently. He dealt with his by using his ginormous brain to do something he thought could help people.”

“Also, because it was dangerous and danger creates a spark,” Mouse pointed out, tilting his head, his fingers tapping out his familiar rhythm softly on the arm of the chair. “The spark is needed to find meaning. Purpose. Otherwise…life is empty.”

G glanced between Jack and Mouse, then shifted his stance so his hands were resting casually on his hips, tone tinged with curiosity. “Who are you talking about, kid?”

Mouse seemed to draw back within himself, then looked over at G with an intent expression. “I suppose I’m talking about all of us.”

Jack huffed a soft laugh in reply, nodding slowly. “Yeah, you’re not wrong.”

“I brought this for you.” Mouse stood from the chair and stepped over to Jack.

Jack reached out and took the book that Mouse held out for him, a confused curving his lips. “ _Lord of the Rings_?”

“You need to meet Shadowfax,” Mouse declared quietly, then glanced over his shoulder at Mac. “So you both see that memory the same.”

Jack exchanged a surprised glance with G.

“Plus, it will expand your Morse Code options,” Mouse lifted a shoulder in a half shrug and started to move toward the door.

“Thanks…thank you, hey,” Jack caught Mouse’s attention with a stage whisper. “I gotta ask…that thing you do with your fingers, there,” he nodded to where Mouse bounced his fingers against the side of his leg. “The rhythm…why is it so familiar?”

Mouse tilted his head. “It’s Beethoven’s _Ode to Joy_ ,” he replied. And then a small smile tilted up the corners of his mouth before he turned and left the room.

“Son of a…,” G murmured. “Been working with that kid for a year and I’ve never seen him smile.”

Jack grinned. “How ‘bout that.”

G huffed, then held his hand out for Jack to shake. “Take care of yourself,” he said, releasing Jack’s hand, glancing over Jack’s shoulder to the bed. “And let us know when he’s back on his feet, yeah?”

“You got it,” Jack nodded, watching the big man leave before settling back down next to Mac.

He tipped back in his chair, feet on the end of Mac’s bed, opening the book Mouse had given him, amused by the young genius’ choice, and settled in to wait. He would wait as long as it took.

Nearly a full twelve hours after being removed from the ventilator, Mac began to murmur and stir. Jack had drifted off, the book open and spread across his chest, his feet up on the bed. He heard a low groan of pain and fear and sat up quickly, blinking in the dimly lit room, trying to orient himself.

“No….” Mac moaned, his head turning restlessly against the pillow. “Please…no….”

“Hey kid,” Jack whispered, setting the book to the side, and leaned forward, one hand on Mac’s wrist, the other resting against the side of his neck.

Mac whimpered, his chin wobbling slightly with emotion. “Zoe, no….”

Jack grimaced, pressing the flat of his thumb against Mac’s cheek. “Mac, c’mon, bud…wake up for me.”

Mac shifted abruptly as if he were dodging a hit, his breathing picking up to a panicked pace, his hands curling into fists.

“Mac, hey,” Jack tucking his fingers into the back of Mac’s neck, trying to trigger the pressure point there. “Open your eyes.”

At that last summons, Mac gasped himself awake, biting off a cry that sounded as though it had desperately wanted to be a scream. Jack held onto him as he pushed back against the pillows, his muscles trembling beneath Jack’s touch, eyes frantically searching the room.

“Easy, hey,” Jack soothed. “Easy. Eyes on me. Right here. That’s it.”

“The…the faces were gone…,” Mac gasped, staring at Jack, pupils blown wide.

“It’s okay,” Jack intoned. “You’re okay.”

“She was…it was all dark and…and the faces….”

Carefully, Jack released his hold on Mac’s wrist and reached up to grip the other side of Mac’s neck, his thumbs framing Mac’s face.

“Mac,” he called, trying to get the younger man to focus, to calm his breathing. “Hey, it’s me, you with me?”

Mac simply blinked at him, trembling, his hands flat on the bed as he tried to push back into the pillows.

“Angus,” Jack tried, and saw Mac’s eyes snap into a new focus, looking at Jack’s face for the first time.

“Jack?” His voice was wrecked.

Jack smiled carefully at him. “There you are.”

Mac’s eyes shifted nervously around the room, his hands moving up to wrap long fingers around Jack’s wrists. “They didn’t…have any faces,” he said softly. “The…the bodies. In that…room.”

And then Jack got it—the bodies still in the sub, in the room with the uranium. The effects of being underwater in the sealed room for thirty years must have been horrifying to witness.

“It’s okay, Mac,” Jack reassured him, rubbing his thumbs soothingly across Mac’s cheekbones. “We’ll take care of them, I promise.”

Mac swallowed, wincing at the motion. Jack felt him start to relax beneath his grip and eased his hands away, sinking a hip onto the bed. Mac kept his hands wrapped around Jack’s wrists.

“You with me now?” Jack asked, watching as Mac’s eyes began to focus.

Mac slowly released one of Jack’s wrists, reaching up to rub his face, feeling the oxygen cannula and frowning.

“My throat is on fire,” he rasped.

Jack used his free hand to reach for a cup of ice. “Probably because you had a tube down it for a couple of days.” He unwound his hand from Mac’s grip and helped him balance some ice chips in his mouth, waiting as he sucked them down and then gave him some more. “Your lungs were pretty wrecked, kiddo. You needed some help breathing for a bit.”

Mac frowned, pulling his bottom lip in against his teeth. “I…. A vent?”

Jack nodded, giving him a reassuring smile. “You’re doing okay, now, though. Just taking your sweet time waking up.” He pressed the call button on the bed as Mac reached back up to massage his throat. “They’ll want to check you out, okay?”

Mac nodded, looking troubled and not a little confused.

Jack noticed Mac didn’t relinquish his hold on his wrist, long fingers wrapped around like a cuff. When the nurse came in and saw that Mac was awake and sitting up, he smiled and moved to the machines. Jack moved as far over as Mac’s grip would allow, staying out of the way, watching as the nurse checked his vitals, asked him cognitive questions, and had him rate his level of pain.

Jack frowned when Mac replied with an eight.

He shifted to the side as the nurse moved Mac’s hospital gown aside to check his bandage. The bruising was deep, dark and a bit alarming, but the nurse seemed satisfied that it wasn’t infected. He told Mac he’d adjust his pain medication until his chest was a bit more stable, then suggested he get some rest.

He looked pointedly at Jack. “Both of you.”

Jack nodded, shifting so the arm still held tightly in Mac’s grip was at a more comfortable angle. “We’ll do our best,” he smiled.

When the nurse left, Mac let out a trembling breath, rubbing at his sore chest distractedly. Jack hitched a hip on the side of Mac’s bed, their joined arms down by Mac’s side.

“Talk to me,” Jack implored. “What’s going on in that ginormous brain of yours?”

Mac’s eyes were directed toward the foot of his bed, but Jack could see he wasn’t seeing anything here, anything _now_.

“I’ve never been on a vent before,” he confessed softly. “I…I don’t actually…remember anything after…,” he frowned, brows furrowing. “Were we talking about Kabul?”

Jack nodded. “Just before the Coast Guard showed up.”

“I don’t remember how…,” his eyes traced slowly up to Jack’s face, memories like cobwebs gathering in his eyes. “Did you take out all the pirates?”

“Well,” Jack gave him a grin and lifted a shoulder, “not all by myself, but…I did get that Roberts guy.”

“Good,” Mac whispered, clearing his throat.

Jack went to reach for the ice chips once more but stopped when the grip on his arm tightened.

“What is it, kid?” Jack asked softly, ducking his chin to try to catch Mac’s eyes. “ _Talk_ to me.”

Mac shook his head, but Jack saw tears gathering in his blue eyes, balanced on the edge of his lashes. He swallowed hard, and Jack felt his heart clench as Mac’s chin trembled with pent up emotion. He shook his head once more and a tear fell.

Huffing, he reached up and used the heel of his hand to banish the tear.

“Don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he muttered, sniffing.

Jack kept himself very still. “What you went through would mess with anyone, Mac.”

“Not like I didn’t know…,” Mac argued, his voice rasping with emotion. “I worked it all out, y’know? I knew what would happen. Biologically. I mean.”

His breath hitched slightly, and Jack found himself wishing he’d just let it out—just go ahead and cry. His own eyes were burning as he watched his partner process the fact that he’d _died_.

He’d died and been brought back, painfully, forcefully. And not without consequences.

“Mac,” he said quietly, rotating the wrist Mac still held, watching as Mac registered with surprise that he still held onto Jack—but didn’t let go. “It’s okay to be scared.”

“It’s…all over, though,” Mac huffed quietly. “Stupid to be scared now.”

Jack shook his head. “It’s logical.”

Mac sniffed. “I thought you hated logic.”

“ _Hate_ is a strong word, Hoss,” Jack teased. “I like it…when it makes sense to me.”

“So, being scared _after_ the fact makes sense to you?” Mac asked, reaching for the ice chips and letting several melt in his mouth.

“Sure,” Jack nodded. “When you’re in the moment…you can’t let yourself think about what ifs or consequences. You just act—that’s why you’re so good at what you do,” Jack shook their joined arms slightly, emphasizing his point. “You find the path, and you move down it, protecting as many as you can.”

Mac looked down.

“But…,” Jack sighed. “That path…sometimes there are wolves on that path, man. And sharp cliffs and—”

“Deep oceans,” Mac filled in, his voice a tear of sound.

“Exactly,” Jack nodded. “And sometimes, bud? Sometimes…you literally have to go through hell to get to the other side of that path. And it’s only when you look back and realize…,” he paused, ducking his head once more and this time successfully catching Mac’s eyes, “that you _died_ —even if it was just for a little bit—that reality comes crashing through your door.”

Mac’s chin bounced once more, and his eyes filled. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, a tear slipping free and sliding in a salty path down to the corner of his mouth. “I’m so sorry I put you through that.”

Jack’s eyes burned once more in response to Mac’s emotion. “It was the scariest damn thing that’s ever happened to me, bud. Not gonna lie.” He offered Mac a tremulous smile. “But you’re here. Now. You made it to the other side of that path. And, yeah, you’re a bit busted up. And it’s going to take a bit to get steady. But you made it.” He reached up his free hand and cupped the back of Mac’s neck. “You _made it_.”

Mac huffed a wet breath, sniffing again, and then ever so slowly, released his hold on Jack’s wrist.

“Thanks to you,” he whispered.

Jack sat back, smiling. “That’s two you owe me, Junior,” he quoted.

Mac laughed weakly. “Is that our Morse Code for ‘you’re welcome’?” He asked, sinking back against the pillows.

“Maybe,” Jack nodded. He picked up the book he’d set aside. “Speaking of…he brought me a present.”

Mac focused in on the cover. “ _Lord of the Rings_ , huh?”

“Said I needed to meet Shadowfax,” Jack recalled, smiling at the memory.

“Shadowfax,” Mac whispered. “Yeah, I remember—the white horse in Kabul.”

Jack tipped the book cover to face him, lips folded down in grudging acceptance. “I have to admit…it’s better than I thought it would be.”

Mac smiled tiredly, resting an arm across his sore ribs. Jack thought about the look on Mouse’s face when he handed him the book. He thought about the way the other young genius had watched them.

_I see a father…._

“How about I read some to you?” Jack suggested.

“Really?” Mac asked, surprise clear in his tone, bringing his eyebrows up.

Jack shrugged, settling back into the chair, and putting his feet back up on the end of the bed. “Sure, why not? You can make fun of how I pronounce all these crazy words.”

Mac gave him a crooked smile. “No one’s ever read to me before,” he shared.

“Well, that there is a shame,” Jack arranged his face in mocking despair to hide the flash of pain those words exposed.

A childhood of uncertainty, a youth of abandonment, an adulthood of survival…the kid didn’t deserve any of it, and yet…there it was.

“My pop read to me all the time—mostly Louis L’Amour.”

“Cowboy stories,” Mac’s smile turned soft and wistful as it so often did when Jack spoke about his father.

“This Aragorn dude,” Jack shifted a bit in the chair, getting comfortable. “He’s kinda like a mix between a cowboy and a soldier.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Mac replied softly.

As he picked up the story where he left off, he could feel Mac’s eyes on him—listening and watching.

“Hey, Jack?” Mac interrupted quietly.

Jack looked up, eyes steady on Mac’s face.

“Thanks for bringing me back,” he whispered.

Jack smiled softly. “Told you, bud. There’s no me if there’s no you.”

Mac’s eyes slid closed. “Keep reading,” he implored.

Jack read until Mac fell asleep.

* * *

**Mac**   
_Canadian hospital, undisclosed location  
Wednesday evening_

The darkness was pervasive.

It felt as though he was moving through ink, not water. His arms were sluggish, his steps hesitant, and his breath hammered loud and intrusive in his ears. He knew they were there—the bodies. Waiting for him. Hanging suspended and timeliness in the pressing quiet, cold like nothing else he’d felt enveloping them completely.

Light hit the first one and he gasped, jerking back, not wanting to see…but the body rotated slowly, turning until he saw long, dark hair floating like a halo around a face…a face that didn’t exist. The eyes were grown over with a waxy film, the mouth drawn down in the mockery of a scream.

He staggered backwards, crashing into something behind him, then turned slowly, his heard hammering in his throat, choking him, cutting off his air. He looked up, his hands shaking, to see a familiar build—hair shorn in a mohawk, strong shoulders bowed by time and death, and a face….

“Jack!”

The shout shot up through his damaged throat, clawing its way to the open through shards of his heart. Hands were immediately at his shoulders, strong, warm, bracing him.

Anchoring him.

Mac blinked sweat and tears from his lashes, fighting to focus.

“Easy, easy, hey,” a familiar voice soothed, close and solid. “Hey, you’re okay. I gotcha.”

“The faces…,” he gasped, his heart slamming so hard against his ribcage he felt it was bruising him from the inside. “They…they were…gone—no faces….”

“I know, kid.”

A solid hand gripped his neck and finally Mac was able to bring Jack into focus. He reached up with a shaking hand and touched Jack’s cheek, his fingers dragging along the scruff the lined his jaw.

He was solid. _Real_.

“That’s right,” Jack nodded, the motion sliding against Mac’s palm. “Still got this ugly mug right here.”

Mac swallowed, closing his eyes, and allowing himself to sag back against the pillows. He sensed movement around him and opened one eye to see a nurse at his bedside, checking the machines near him. Only when it suddenly went quiet next to him did he realize the heart monitor had been shrilly screaming in the background.

“He’s okay,” he heard Jack say. “He’s good.”

He blocked out any other words, tenting one hand across his forehead and working to steady his breathing. His ribs _ached_. There wasn’t a place on him from his shoulders to his hip bones that didn’t feel bruised. The simple act of filling his lungs made him want to whimper—and his side….

He reached for it, feeling carefully along the thick bandages. It felt warm and tender and raw, like he’d rubbed his muscles with sandpaper.

“That one was a doozy,” Jack commented casually. “Thirsty?”

Mac nodded, dropping his hand from his face, relieved to see they were alone in the room again. He took the cup of water from Jack and drank deeply.

“Better?”

He exhaled, dropping he head back. “Freaking nightmares.”

“Yeah,” Jack hitched one hip on the bed. “I’ve been thinking about that.”

Mac blinked, looking over at him. He was wearing different clothes, and he looked rested, steady. It made Mac wonder how long he’d been there now—how many times Jack had woken him up from the same dream.

“I made a call while you were sleeping earlier,” Jack continued. “I think we might get an update on what’s been…haunting you.”

“It’s stupid,” Mac shook his head, looking up at the ceiling.

He was better than this. He _had to_ be.

“Is it?” Jack challenged.

Mac rested his arm across his middle, his fingers idly patting the bandage over his wound. “It’s not like I haven’t seen bodies before. I know what water does to tissue.” He huffed, looking to the side, away from Jack, not quite able to meet his partner’s eyes. “I mean…it’s _science_.”

Jack hummed a reply, then stood up, moving away from Mac’s bed. Out of curiosity, Mac rolled his head on the pillows to track his movement. He saw Jack standing across the room, his back to Mac, looking through a window at the darkening sky.

“You remember what I was like after Cairo?” Jack asked suddenly.

Mac frowned. Jack _never_ willingly brought up Cairo. “I….”

“How I couldn’t get…couldn't stop thinking about that one woman. The one with the…with the red scarf?”

Mac felt cold, recalling the moment everything went sideways. The way Jack froze. His own feeling of desperation to get Jack to safety—knowing they couldn’t save everyone.

“I mean,” Jack lifted a shoulder, not looking over at Mac, eyes on the night. “It’s not like I hadn’t seen my share of bodies, too—I’ve lost track of the number of people I’ve killed. I knew what an explosion like that would do. But…,” he exhaled a rough, humorless laugh, “I could stop… _seeing_ her. Dreaming about it.”

“I remember,” Mac whispered.

“You remember what you said to me?”

Mac’s eyes burned with emotion and memory. “Yeah,” he replied, his voice breaking across the sound.

Jack turned to face him, his expression in shadow. “You said, one day you’re gonna save someone, and their face will replace the one you lost.”

Tears blurring his vision, Mac nodded. Jack dragged a hand down his face, then moved a step closer to the bed.

“You were right,” Jack nodded. “It didn’t happen right away, but…you were right.”

Mac looked away, eyes trained on the ceiling, willing the tears to stand fast, to not fall. There was a knot inside of him—tight and painful, sitting right over his heart. And he was afraid if he gave in to the emotion…if let the knot unwind…the precarious balance he held now would topple, and he’d never stop falling.

“This was a tough op,” Jack said, his voice now much closer. “But…one day a new memory will replace this one. And you’ll be able to breathe easier.”

Mac nodded, wanting to believe him. Wanting it to be that easy.

“Can…,” he cleared his throat. “Can you ask them to, uh, unhook me?”

“You ready to get up for a bit?” Jack guessed.

Mac slid his eyes to the side, and Jack simply nodded, then headed from the room to find the nurse.

It took a bit of maneuvering and not a little discomfort, but soon Mac was free from the catheters and leads. The nurse cautioned that the IV should be reattached soon and if his oxygen saturation fell below ninety, they’d want him back on oxygen. Mac just nodded, waiting for the nurse to leave the room.

“Jack,” he asked, almost shyly, “can you help me? I want to clean up.”

“Sure, kid,” Jack replied immediately.

First making sure a change of clothes waited for him in the bathroom, Jack then helped him steady himself on the edge of the bed and find his balance once fully upright. His muscles stretched painfully, his legs seemed hollow, but it felt good to be standing. They made their way to the bathroom and Jack turned on the shower for him, setting a plastic stool beneath the spray.

Mac stood in front of the mirror, regarding himself for the first time in days.

“Holy shit,” he murmured. “I look like hell.”

His face was pale, his eyes looked bruised, his cheekbones stuck out more sharply than he remembered.

“Naw,” Jack waved a hand dismissively as the room filled up with steam. “You just look like a guy who defied the odds and pulled off the impossible. Like usual.”

Mac swallowed hard, trying to absorb the confidence in Jack’s tone and turn it into his own. He unsnapped the sleeves of his hospital gown, dropping it to his waist, and catching it against him with his hips and the edge of the sink, maintaining some modesty. He looked down at his chest in amazement.

There were red circles that appeared like burn scars where the defibrillator leads had pressed against his skin. A dark bruise extended from his sternum outward, broken blood vessels at the center, the edges beginning to turn a greenish yellow. He peeled away the gauze and tape at his side and winced at the pull against the sensitive skin, stitched on the inside and glued together on the outside.

“That’s going to be an impressive scar, Hoss,” Jack commented, leaning casually against the doorway, off to the side but close enough if Mac needed him.

“Yeah,” Mac replied softly. “Kinda tired of collecting scars.”

“Not going to argue with you there,” Jack murmured. After a beat, he ducked his head, catching Mac’s eyes in the mirror. “Want me to step out?”

“Yea—” Mac started to automatically reply, but bit off his answer. “Actually, uh…do you mind staying? It’s just….”

Jack held up a hand. “Don’t have to explain, bud,” he said. “I got you.”

Mac stepped behind the curtain, tossing the gown out behind him, then sat shakily on the plastic stool. A silver bar was fixed to the tiled wall opposite the curtain, and Mac gripped it tightly, the warm spray of the water hitting him in the face and running down his bruised chest to his lap.

In an instant, he was back in the submerged DSV, his face pressed to the ceiling, grabbing desperately for the last breath of air he might ever take before the frigid water closed over his head.

“Mac?”

He pulled his face away from the spray, gripping the bar tightly with one hand, the other flailing to the side, fingers twisting into a fist in the cloth of the curtain. The warm water streamed down against his chest, steam surrounding him—not icy cold, not over his face—but he couldn’t steady his breathing. It hitched and caught as though his lungs were filled with barbed wire.

A hand snaked around the curtain, strong fingers wrapping around his clenched fist, moving to grip his wrist and when the hell had Jack gotten so close?

Mac wanted to push him away and grab him tight at the same time and _damn_ but he hurt. _Everything_. Every breath, every blink of his water-burned eyes, every tremble of his over-used muscles….

“Easy, kid,” Jack soothed from the other side of the curtain. “You’re okay, Mac.”

Mac’s breath staggered and stuttered and suddenly tears mingled with the water on his face and the knot that had been pressing against his heart uncoiled and emotion flooded him, surging forward like a wave, curling him forward so that his chin touched his bare chest, the water fell on the crown of his head, soaking his hair and surrounding him with warmth.

He sat hunched over, one hand gripping the rail, the other held tightly by Jack, and sobbed, gasping and shuddering as the memories swept through him.

The desperate _need_ to breathe and having an ice-cold ocean replacing his air. The last glimmer of light before darkness took him in a freezing rush of terror. The lightning bolt of pain that surged through him as awareness returned with panicked misery. The ache, that frozen _ache_ that held him in its merciless grip as he fought to the surface of awareness.

And through it all, Jack’s voice. Steady, strong. Constant.

“…be okay, bud,” Jack was saying now, and Mac realized he’d been talking the whole time, standing on the other side of the curtain, his arm soaked from the shower, holding Mac’s wrist in a tight grip as Mac shook and sobbed and fell apart beneath the water. “I got you, man. I won’t let go.”

Mac felt the tears taper, drawing in a wet, staggering breath, and lifting his head slowly. He let the water run down his face, slowly releasing the safety bar, and pushing his hair back. He began to steady his breathing, letting the heat ease the aches in his body, closing his eyes against the sting of the spray.

“There you go,” Jack encouraged, apparently having registered the change in his breathing. “See? You got this.”

“Thanks, man,” Mac managed, his voice a strangle of sound. He carefully released Jack and leaned both hands on his knees, letting the water run down his neck and back.

“You gonna be okay?” Jack asked. “Need me to hang out?”

Mac shook his head, then spoke up. “I think I’m good.”

“’K,” Jack replied, albeit reluctantly. “I’ll be just outside.”

Mac carefully washed, then turned off the water, toweling himself off. He felt shaky, but steadier than before. Pulling on the sweats and long-sleeved T-shirt that Jack brought him, he shuffled back out to the room, rubbing a towel over his wet hair. Jack wasn’t in the room, and he was a bit relieved to be able to climb weakly back into his bed without an audience.

After a minute, Jack ducked his head back into the room. “You decent?”

Mac nodded, offering him a half-smile. Jack stepped in, looking over his shoulder at something, then made his way over to the foot of the bed. “Think you might be up for a visitor?”

In truth, he had no idea what he was up for, but he didn’t feel like going into that now. “Sure.”

Jack looked through the doorway and nodded. Mac felt his whole self smile when Riley walked in.

“Hey, Riles,” he greeted.

She made a beeline to his side, leaning over and hugging him carefully. “I’m so happy to see you awake,” she whispered to him, rubbing his back gently. She pulled slightly away, looking him in the eyes. “You scared us.”

“Yeah,” Mac looked down, feeling sheepish. “I kinda scared myself.”

“We need to step out for a minute, bud,” Jack told him. “The nurse is going to get you squared away with some pain meds—ha, yeah,” Jack smiled when Mac couldn’t hide his look of relief, his hand ghosting over his wounded side, “I thought you’d like that. We’ll be back in just a minute.”

“’K,” Mac replied, leaning back, and closing his eyes.

True to Jack’s word, the nurse came in, checked his wound, and taped another gauze patch over it, then hooked up his IV and administered the promised pain medication. In minutes, Mac felt it slip through his bloodstream, easing the sharp, insistent ache that didn’t seem to want to leave him alone. He let his body melt against the pillows, listening to the hum of voices outside of his room.

He was almost asleep when a distinctly familiar smell wafted toward him. Blinking groggily aware, he peered toward the door as Riley and Jack returned, both grinning like kids at Christmas, a wide, flat pizza box balanced in Jack’s hands.

“Wait…,” Mac pushed upright in his bed. “Is that…DeSano’s?”

“Yep!” Riley grinned. “Bozer pulled some strings and made a few under the table deals and…voila! Your favorite!”

Mac felt an honest smile relax his face for the first time since they’d left Los Angeles days ago. He pulled his legs in to make room and waited as Jack and Riley sat on the foot of the bed, the pizza box between them.

“Had to clear it with your doc, of course,” Jack told him as he handed out napkins. “But since you’re a chronic over-achiever, seems you’re doing well enough they’re talking about getting you off the good stuff and onto the take-home stuff.”

Mac bit into a slice, the familiar taste shooting warmth through his whole being. “We can go home?” he asked around a mouthful of pizza.

Jack lifted a shoulder. “Tomorrow, maybe. Don’t rush it, kid. You were on a vent not too long ago.”

Mac nodded, and continued to eat, relishing the momentary peace that settled over the room. Riley shared updates on what had been going on back at the Phoenix while they’d been away, and how fast Matty mobilized every single agent the minute they got their distress call. Mac watched the light in Jack’s eyes reflect in Riley’s expression as the two of them laughed, content with simply listening, eating, and feeling less pain.

A knock at the door brought all three heads around.

“Okay to enter?” came a vaguely familiar voice.

“Uh, sure,” Jack replied, tossing a confused look Mac’s direction.

A young man with close-cropped blond hair and steady blue eyes walked in, carrying a manilla folder. It took Mac a moment to place him, Jack getting it two beats before he did.

“Kirk?”

Crewman Kirk from the _Zephyr_ nodded sharply, eyes landing and lingering on Riley before he looked back at Jack.

“Damn, kid,” Jack stood up, setting his pizza slice back in the box. “I didn’t recognize you in civvies.”

“It’s okay, sir,” Kirk replied. He handed a folder out to him. “Captain Dreymon thought you would appreciate the official report, based on your call yesterday.”

Jack frowned, taking the folder. Before he could open it, Mac asked, “Did Dreymon have any problem with Roberts or the pirates?”

Kirk shook his head. “Coast Guard helped us contain them and we were able to turn them over to the authorities.” He lifted a shoulder. “Just before I left to head over here, I heard that they were all being taken to Russia to await trial.” He half grinned. “Even Roberts.”

“Good,” Jack practically growled. Mac saw the barest hint of a raised eyebrow just before he said, “I hope they live long and do _not_ prosper.”

Kirk barked out a surprised laugh.

“Like that one?” Jack asked, grinning.

“It’s definitely an original Spock joke,” Kirk grinned appreciatively.

Jack opened the folder and Mac watched as he skimmed the contents, then looked up at Kirk. “This is legit?”

“Yessir,” Kirk nodded. “Every word.”

Jack closed the folder and reached out a hand for Kirk to shake. “Thank you, Crewman,” he said, sincerely. Kirk shook his hand and Mac suppressed a smile, waiting a beat. “You’re going to make a great Starship Captain one day,” Jack grinned.

“And there it is,” Kirk chuckled good-naturedly. He nodded over at Mac. “I’m glad you’re going to be okay, Mr. MacGyver.”

“Thanks, Crewman,” Mac replied.

“Take care of yourself, Kirk,” Jack nodded as the young Crewman turned to leave.

“You too, sir,” Kirk replied as he left the room.

Jack turned to Mac, the folder in his hands. Both Riley and Mac looked at Jack curiously.

“I think you’ll want to see this,” Jack said, handing Mac the folder.

Frowning in confusion, Mac set the pizza back in the box and took the folder, opening it to look at the report inside.

It was the crew manifest of the Akula sub, all sixty-two names. Skimming the list, he saw four highlighted, with special asterisks and a footnote.

“They identified them?” Mac breathed in wonder.

Jack nodded. “I called Dreymon,” he said. “Rescue divers went down to the sub and brought up the four you saw in the weapons bay. They were able to identify them and are preparing to return the bodies to the families.”

“Thirty years later,” Riley breathed. “Can you even imagine?”

Mac’s eyes burned, tears blurring the printing on the page. He looked up, blinking the emotion back. “Thanks, Jack,” he managed.

“I told you we’d take care of them, kid,” Jack replied, a soft smile folding the lines around his eyes. “You can work on replacing that memory.”

Mac looked back down at the folder, dragging a hand down his face. He nodded silently, the sides of his mouth tipping up in a smile.

Riley returned to Los Angeles that evening, and Mac tried to encourage Jack to join her, insisting that he was fine and would be good to travel on his own in a couple of days. The look Jack shot him would have frozen him in his tracks, had he been standing.

“Pretty sure we talked about this,” Jack settled into the chair next to Mac’s bed, kicking his feet up on the edge of the bed. “I’m not leaving you, so just hush up about it. ‘Sides,” he cleared his throat, picking up Mouse’s book once more. “We’re just about ready to head into Mordor.”

The next day had Mac taking slow laps around the hospital floor, building up his strength and stamina. Exchanging DeSano’s pizza for hospital food was a bit of a let-down, but he knew he had to build up his energy. They started to wean him from the stronger pain medication and by the time he’d taken two additional laps that afternoon, he was breathless and sore, ready to take a break for a few hours.

True to his word, Jack stayed by his side, wandering the halls with him, chatting up the nurses, a hand at his elbow when he felt himself waver, his constant as ever. It felt odd to Mac that two weeks ago, they were struggling to find their balance as they rescued Worthy. It felt even stranger that he had left for three months, running away from the pain of his father’s betrayal…and leaving Jack behind.

“What’s going on in that head of yours, bud?” Jack asked as Mac lay back, staring at the ceiling.

Mac huffed slightly, closing his eyes. “How do you always know?”

Jack cracked open the book—they’d made quite a bit of progress in the story. “Easy. I know _you_ , kid.”

Mac was quiet for a moment. “Did you ever talk with your Pop about…about being a dad?”

He heard Jack’s boots hit the floor as he sat forward.

“Well, that’s new,” Jack said. “Something you not telling me? You and Nasha…?”

“No,” Mac shook his head, huffing out a laugh. He pushed himself up a bit in the bed. “Nothing like that, promise.”

“Okay,” Jack said slowly, drawing the word out like taffy. “Not that a little Mac Junior wouldn’t be freaking adorable, but…not sure if I’m ready to be Uncle Jack quite yet.”

Mac waved a hand at him. “You got nothing to worry about, Uncle Jack.”

“In that case…yeah,” he answered. “We did, a little.” He sat back, a faraway look slipping across his expression. “I asked him one time how he knew when to let me figure it out…and when to step in and save me from myself. I was…it was my first time leading a team. And it was hard to know which way to pivot sometimes.”

“What’d he say?” Mac asked, genuinely curious.

Jack’s eyebrows bounced up. “Well, he said, ‘they’ll let you know.’”

“They’ll let you know?”

“Yep,” Jack nodded, pressing his lips together. “Didn’t elaborate either. Just gave me that smile where it was impossible to be mad at him, even if he had just sent my world sideways.”

Mac smiled softly, looking down.

“My turn,” Jack said, leaning forward so that his elbows were resting on his knees. “You thinking about having to face your dad when we get back?”

“Kind of,” Mac confessed, plucking at a loose thread in the white blanket across his legs. “I mean…I figure he knows what happened…y’know, in that DSV. I haven’t heard anything, but…I know he knows.” He rolled his neck slightly, sinking back against the pillows. “He knew about Cairo. About Nikki and Lake Como. He knew about…about El Noche and Murdoc. He knew every time I got hurt, but…I never heard from him. Not once.”

Jack was silent, but Mac could feel him listening with his whole body.

“I just…I wonder if it’ll be different this time,” he said softly. “Y’know, ‘cause…now he _knows_ I know. Who he is. Where he is.”

“Will it change anything for you?” Jack asked.

Mac thought about it for a moment. Would it change how he saw his father, if he heard from him after this near miss? Would it change how he saw himself? Would it change fifteen years of loneliness and uncertainty? Would it change that he’d left everyone who loved and supported him behind to hide from the one person who was supposed to be there for him, but never was?

Would it change what’d he’d done to Jack?

“No,” he said quietly.

“Then, let it go, bud,” Jack offered. “You are good—to your _bones_ good—and you got there all on your own. You didn’t get there because of anything he did or didn’t to. Your wins are all yours—and your losses, too.”

Breathing slowly, Mac looked over at Jack, at the seriousness of his expression, the lines that traced the path of his life around his eyes, the strong, sturdy posture. The partner who’d kept him alive in the desert and pulled him from the depths of the ocean was more of a father to him than the man from whom he’d inherited DNA.

And he was proud of that.

“Letting you down… _that_ changed things for me,” Mac confessed.

Jack’s brows flinched. “You never let me down, bud.”

“I left.”

“Yeah,” Jack sat back slowly. “But, you came back.”

“I’m not leaving again,” Mac promised. “I’ll…figure something out with Nasha, but…I gotta stay here—well, home. I gotta…figure out who I am. Now that I know what I know. About the Phoenix. About my dad. I need to,” he frowned, struggling to find the right words, the right promise.

“Find your balance,” Jack offered.

Mac nodded. “Yeah. My balance.”

They sat quietly for a moment, breathing the same air, and Mac realized he was unconsciously matching his rhythm to Jack’s.

“I got you, kid,” Jack smiled.

“You always do,” Mac acknowledged.

Jack looked down, his grin coloring his face. Just then, his phone buzzed, causing them both to jump. He dug it out from his back pocket and looked at the text.

“It’s Kiwanuka,” he reported. “They got a new ship—and are heading to the Bering Sea next week.”

“That’s great!” Mac smiled.

“Looks like it’s the same crew—only Amber gets herself a new DSV and says thanks for that,” Jack glanced up with raised eyebrows. He continued to scroll through the text. “Kiwanuka is apparently not all that thrilled that the Beastie Boys were part of our rescue plan because it has, and I quote, ‘renewed Huron’s deep and abiding love for that shit,’ end quote.”

Mac chuckled. “It was a good plan. A John McClane-worthy plan,” he acknowledged.

“Hell yeah, it was,” Jack agreed, still reading. “Also says to tell you Mouse figured out that the…nitrogen mix goes through the left ventricle tube?”

Mac tipped his head back. “Ha! Of course—that would ensure the tubes streamlined on the dive suit! Tell him he’s a genius.”

“Pretty sure he already knows that,” Jack began typing a reply, “but I’ll tell him.” His phone buzzed while he was typing. “And…this one is Matty.”

“New mission?” Mac asked, shifting sleepily.

Jack shook his head. “Not yet, but…could be,” he said enigmatically, typing something else in reply to Matty. He looked up at Mac. “You’re about to fall asleep and leave me in Mordor all by myself, aren’t you?”

“Been a long day,” Mac yawned.

Jack patted his arm. “Rest up, kid,” he said softly. “Soon as you’re strong enough, we’ll head home. Together.”

Mac smiled, letting his eyes drift shut. His partner was right.

They had work to do.

FIN

**Author's Note:**

>  **A/N:** Thank you so much for reading! I appreciate the gift of your time, and if you're so inclined to leave a comment, I sincerely thank you. As it turns out, writing during a pandemic has been a challenge of mind, spirit, and emotion. I had a random idea and at first, I simply wanted to put that on paper. 
> 
> But as I researched, as I worked through bringing that idea to life, and as I attempted to infuse emotion into the situations and the characters, I found some of it to be more of a challenge than with previous stories. It suddenly became much more important than I realized to craft a balance between entertainment and emotion. I hope the result was something you felt worth your time and attention. And that you'll welcome me back.
> 
> Slainte!  
> Gaelic


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